Clinton blames loss on Putin, FBI letter — Report
NEW YORK: Hillary Clinton blames Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had a “personal beef” against her, and a late-hour FBI intervention over her email scandal for her loss to Donald Trump in the US election, a newspaper reported Friday.
Clinton, 69, has kept a low profile in the weeks since her shock defeat to the Republican billionaire, but made the remarks to campaign donors in Manhattan on Thursday night, The New York Times reported.
The Democratic former secretary of state won the popular vote by more than 2.7 million ballots but lost the crucial Electoral College by 232 to 306.
Trump walked away with the election because he won a string of swing states. Crucially his wins in three of those states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, amounted to a combined total of around 100,000 votes.
The Times said Clinton told donors that a letter from FBI director James Comey revisiting her private server scandal dating back to her time as secretary of state, 10 days before the election, cost her close races in several states.
“Swing-state voters made their decisions in the final days breaking against me because of the FBI letter from Director Comey,” the Times quoted her as saying.
She said the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and her campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails stemmed from Putin’s “personal beef” against her, the newspaper reported. — AFP