Clinton Targets Russians, Comey, DNC, Sexism in Election Loss
In some of her most extensive comments about the election since her loss to Donald Trump last November, Hillary Clinton hit at targets yesterday that she believes played a role in her defeat. Appearing at a tech conference in San Francisco, some of the factors she named included Russian interference, former FBI Director James Comey's actions, the Democratic National Committee and sexism.
Clinton argued that reports of Russian interference in the election were ignored at the time, despite her campaign's efforts to get the media to report on it, while the issue of her emails was constantly put in the forefront. She said of Comey: "Comey was more than happy to talk about my emails, but he wouldn't talk about investigation of the Russians." Comey announced in the summer of 2016 that he wouldn't recommend charges against Clinton over her use of a private email server, but, in a highly unusual move, publicly criticized Clinton over it, saying it was "extremely careless." Then, with less than two weeks before the election, he announced he was looking at more emails, only to say just before the election that those emails didn't change his decision not to bring charges.
Clinton also charged the email scandal was way overblown, saying, "The overriding issue that affected the election that I had any control over -- because I had no control over the Russians -- was the way the use of my email account was turned into the greatest scandal since Lord knows when. This was the biggest nothing burger ever."
She further argued that criticism she got for giving paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, as well as other hurdles in the campaign, were driven by sexism. Clinton stated, "I never said I was a perfect candidate and I never said I ran perfect campaigns. But I don't know who is or did. And at some point it sort of bleeds over into misogyny. . . . People who have a set of expectations about who should be president and what a president looks like, they're going to be much more skeptical or critical of someone who doesn't look like or talk like or sound like everyone else who has been president."
Clinton even took aim at the Democratic National Committee. She said that once she became the nominee, she inherited "nothing" from the DNC, explaining, "It was bankrupt; it was on the verge of insolvency; its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong."
(Pulse Networks)