Hillary Clinton conceded that her presidential campaign was flawed on Tuesday, but largely pinned the blame for her defeat on factors beyond her control, including Russian interference in the election, and actions taken by FBI Director James Comey.
“Did we make mistakes? Of course we did. Did I make mistakes? Oh, my gosh yes,” Clinton told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour at a “Women for Women International” event in New York, “but the reason why I believe we lost were the intervening events in the last 10 days.”
Clinton suggested that she believes she would have won if not for what the intelligence community described in a post-election report as “an influence campaign” directed by Vladimir Putin to undermine her during the election, as well as Comey’s decision to notify Congress on October 28 that the FBI would review additional emails in connection with an investigation into her personal email server. The FBI later announced on the eve of the election that the emails would not affect the outcome of the investigation.
“It wasn’t a perfect campaign, there is no such thing,” Clinton said,“but I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28, and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off.” She added that she believes misogyny was also a factor in her defeat.