Hillary Clinton blames Russian hackers and Comey for 2016 election loss

[DonViejo]

Source: The Washington Post


By Philip Rucker May 2 at 2:39 PM

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday attributed her defeat in the 2016 presidential election to interference by Russian hackers and FBI Director James B. Comey, and declared herself to be “part of the resistance” to Donald Trump’s presidency.

“If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president,” Clinton told moderator Christiane Amanpour, the CNN anchor, at a Women for Women event in New York.

After spending the past six months in relative hibernation, Clinton made a rare public appearance Tuesday and ruminated extensively for the first time on her loss. She said she has been busy writing a memoir, a process she described as a “cathartic” yet “excruciating” and “painful.”

While Clinton said she takes “absolute personal responsibility” for losing to Trump, she did not assign any blame to her strategy or staff. Nor did she point to her own weaknesses as a candidate or the struggles by her and her team to understand the angry mood of key parts of the electorate.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-blames-russian-hackers-and-comey-for-2016-election-loss/2017/05/02/e62fef72-2f60-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e_story.html?utm_term=.85169e5cf544&wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%252Bnation&wpmk=1

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[berksdem]

1. wait a minute....

I have been reading on this very site that it was Bernie's fault!

Just a joke... a joke....

[Hortensis]

15. She would not blame a leader whom so many Democrats,

Democrat-leaning independents, and farther-left voters admired.

That would be incredibly foolish and counterproductive, and she is not foolish.

We're at war with a small number of ultraconservative plutocrats determined to destroy our nation as we've always known it, and all our Democratic leaders are of course focused on protecting democracy from that big, existential threat.

[still_one]

6. "you cannot expect a women to channel or lead anger well"???? WTF

https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/28/media-freak-out-fbi-letter-disregard-facts-and-run-gops-false-description-clinton-email-review/214184

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-chaffetz-fbi-investigation-lies-e9fff5359102

https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/30/ny-times-floods-front-page-fbi-letter-stories-while-acknowledging-it-didn-t-reopen-clinton-server/214202

I very glad she is coming out and pushing back on the bullshit that has been coming out lately that conveniently ignores the media coverage, the FBI and Russian interference.

Hillary was ahead in the polls before the FBI letter to the republicans in congress, and once that letter and the media's misrepresentation of it came out, she lost that lead. This isn't rocket science. Nate Silver said without a doubt Hillary would have won before that letter, and he's right:

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/309871-nate-silver-clinton-almost-certainly-wouldve-won-if-election-were-before

[still_one]

3. Absolutely, but she should have added the media for intentionally LYING about the

letter that Comey sent to the republicans in Congress, by saying that "the email investigation was reopened". That was a LIE, and the MEDIA knew it


https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/28/media-freak-out-fbi-letter-disregard-facts-and-run-gops-false-description-clinton-email-review/214184

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-chaffetz-fbi-investigation-lies-e9fff5359102

https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/30/ny-times-floods-front-page-fbi-letter-stories-while-acknowledging-it-didn-t-reopen-clinton-server/214202

I very glad she is coming out and pushing back on the bullshit that has been coming out lately that conveniently ignores the media coverage, the FBI and Russian interference.

Hillary was ahead in the polls before the FBI letter to the republicans in congress, and once that letter and the media's misrepresentation of it came out, she lost that lead. This isn't rocket science. Nate Silver said without a doubt Hillary would have won before that letter, and he's right:

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/309871-nate-silver-clinton-almost-certainly-wouldve-won-if-election-were-before

[deurbano]

12. Yes!

[vi5]

4. Comey/Wikileaks were just the tipping points....

..she was fighting against 25 years of media hatred, anger, and witch hunts. Comey and Wikilieaks just both reinforced narratives that had been hammered into people's heads for decades and preconceived opinions that were already entrenched. And not just for her (although a lot of it was personal) but for women in general.

[StevieM]

8. I disagree. I think Comey targeted her and devastated her candidacy going all the way back to 2015.

I agree with you about Wikileaks. That is something that can be labelled "the tipping point."

But Comey, the FBI and their role in pushing the fake email scandal absolutely obliterated her, from beginning to end.

[deurbano]

14. Like breaking with precedent to trash her as he cleared her...

Recklessly accusing HER of being reckless! And it was a crap position for Clinton. How should she respond to the head of the FBI... who had been chosen by President Obama... and who would still be the head of the FBI if she became president? She just had to accentuate the positive part and tread very gingerly in defending herself from the reckless "reckless" accusation. And it would have worked without Comey's October Surprise. (And a revoltingly complicit media.)

[StevieM]

20. Obama was a great president but appointing James Comey was his biggest mistake. (eom)

[onetexan]

13. yup, it was a combo of reasons, not just one

and the paternalistic system that's holding this country back didn't allow a supremely qualified woman - the most qualified person ever to be nominated for the job actually - to become president.
I'll also add that the impossible happened - the treasonous collusion of the orange idiot in bed with Putin and his ilk - to turn the tide against Hillary. 45's an illegitimate president propped up by the GOP without shame. We neeed to keep up the attacks against their tactics and do what we can to oust this horrendous man. He is a clear and present danger to the country.

[Pathwalker]

5. AND a BILLION dollars of free press from a media pushing a madman

for the sake of money in their pockets.

[still_one]

7. you are right on target there

[TrollBuster9090]

9. What's really ironic, is that neither the Russians nor Comey actually thought Trump would WIN!

On election night, nobody was more surprised than Putin, Comey, AND TRUMP that their efforts actually succeeded in defeating her.

Both Comey and Putin were hoping that she'd win, but that it would be a pyrrhic victory that would basically paralyze her. Clinton would win, just barely, but lose both the House and Senate, and spend the next four years being insulted and thwarted by a GOP Congress. Continuous House hearings on her faux 'scandals,' and continuous refusal to appoint any of her nominees, or back any of her foreign policy.

Putin had already popped the biggest bag of popcorn in history, and was waiting for the four year long show to start. And then THIS! It must have been quite a shock!

[still_one]

11. not buying it. Comey had the computer for over a month, and waited 11 days before

the election to send the letter to the republicans in congress, which the media promptly LIED about it by saying the "FBI reopened the email investigation".

The fact that Comey refused to come out and correct the LIE that the media and the republicans were propagating that the investigation had been reopened, demonstrates he knew exactly what he was doing. That the AG told him NOT to do it this close to the election, and he still directly disobeyed her leaves no doubt what his intentions were.

As for Putin being surprised, there is NO evidence of that. In fact, just the opposite that he also did everything to tilt the election toward trump

[pkdu]

22. I believe FBI had it for a month ( New York office , rabid anti-clinton) , then hit Comey

with it week before election and they told him publish or be damned. He did it ;

1. to save the FBI imploding
2. he hates Clintons anyway


in that order

[still_one]

23. You and I are in agreement, and there is no doubt he wanted Clinton to lose also

[StevieM]

10. Comey was a much bigger deal than Wikileaks. The Russians could be said to have changed

a narrow victory into a narrow defeat.

But Comey and the FBI completely obliterated her candidacy with their year-long partisan actions, culminating with Comey's disgraceful and dishonest letter to Jason Chaffetz.

[Blue_Tires]

16. And on Twitter the WaPo/NYT/CNN has circled the wagons and opened up both barrels on HRC

For daring to suggest the media's sensationalist handling of Comey/Wikileaks in retrospect might have been a mistake...

Funny how everyone left and right has been demanding for HRC to "apologize" for losing, yet the media gets to skate on the role they played...

[AmandaRuth]

17. she is a great person, and would have made a great leader

however, I put the blame squarely on the people who voted trump

[still_one]

18. and on the opinon page of the WP they have Jennifer Rubin, spewing her bullshit how it was

all Hillary's fault, because of course we "never hear the right wings point of view"



It is such a crock the whole media circus in America

While they disgraced themselves with their coverage of this Presidential election, they have being doing a shoddy job of it for a long time.

It is all about ratings and money, not about facts

[ehrnst]

19. Imagine a leader that adapts and learns, instead of calling those things

"pivoting!" or "capitulating."

Self awareness and the ability to learn when presented with data is something that we could REALLY use right now.
Instead it's viewed as weak.

Imagine a leader who admits that they might have been wrong, even once, and whose supporters actually saw that as something to be admired.

What we could have had.....

[tavernier]

21. And Andrea Mitchell did a happy dance today

reporting on this. She had her smug face on as she cheerfully accused Hillary of not accepting any of the blame, and nearly broke into giggles when describing HRC as still being devastated by the loss.

I haven't seen Mrs. Greenspan this happy since she was on the daily Email story.