HILLARY Clinton has blamed her surprised defeat in the US presidential election to Donald Trump on interventions by the FBI director.
James Comey's announcement of a new inquiry into her use of email while secretary of state shortly before election day had stopped her campaign's momentum, the Democrat presidential candidate said.
Clinton told supporters at a 30-minute conference call that Comey’s decision to send a letter to Congress about the inquiry 11 days before Election Day had thrust the controversy back into the news and had prevented her from ending the campaign with an optimistic closing argument.
“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,” Clinton said, according to a donor who relayed the remarks. But, she added, “our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum.”
Clinton said that her team had drafted a memo that looked at the changing opinion polls leading up to the election and that the letter from Comey proved to be a turning point.
She said Comey's decision to go public with the renewed examination of her email server had caused an erosion of support in the upper Midwest, according to three people familiar with the call.
Clinton said a second letter from Comey, clearing her once again, which came two days before Election Day, had been even more damaging.
In that letter, Comey said an examination of a new trove of emails, which had been found on the computer of Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of one of her top aides, did not cause him to change his earlier conclusion that Clinton should face no charges over her handling of classified information.
Her campaign said the seemingly positive outcome had only hurt it with voters who did not trust Clinton and were receptive to Mr. Trump’s claims of a “rigged system.”
Clinton lost in Wisconsin, the first time since 1984 that the state supported the Republican candidate in a presidential election. Although the final result in Michigan has still not been tallied, it is leaning Republican, in a state that last backed the Republican nominee in 1988.
Clinton said, in particular, white suburban women who had been on the fence were reminded of the email imbroglio and broke decidedly in Trump’s favour, aides said.
After leading in polls in many battleground states, Clinton told supporters “we dropped, and we had to keep really pushing to regain our advantage, which going into last weekend we had.”
“We were once again up in all but two of the battleground states, and we were up considerably in some that we ended up losing,” said Clinton, whose tone was described by a donor as stoic.
“And we were feeling like we had to put it back together.”
A spokesperson for the FBI could not immediately be reached for comment.
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