Hillary Clinton blamed her presidential defeat on FBI Director James Comey in a call with her top donors on Saturday, offering her most extensive comments yet following her loss to Republican nominee Donald Trump.
“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,” Clinton, the Democratic nominee, said, according to The New York Times. “[O]ur analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum.”
{mosads}Clinton said that her poll numbers recovered from a plunge following the first letter from Comey, which came 11 days before the election and informed Congress that the FBI had renewed its interest in the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of State after they found emails related to the probe.
However, she argued the second letter — sent just two days before the election saying that a review of newly discovered emails found nothing to alter the decision to not recommend charges over the mishandling of classified information — aroused Trump’s supporters.
“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,” Clinton said, according to the Times report. “And we were feeling like we had to put it back together.”
Clinton’s comments come just days after her top campaign aides also pinned blame for the loss on the FBI director in another call.
On that call with donors on Thursday, campaign chairman John Podesta said that Comey is the one “who we think may have cost us the election.”
Clinton encouraged the participants on the call Saturday to remain active in supporting state, local and national Democratic candidates, according to Politico.
Reuters reported that Clinton’s campaign finance chair announced in Saturday’s call that the Democratic National Committee and the campaign had raised a total $900 million during the race.