FBI Chief James Comey Unrepentant While Hillary Clinton Blames Everyone For Her Election Defeat
Hillary Clinton believes that FBI chief James Comey cost her the chance of beating Donald Trump in last November’s presidential election. Going into the election, Clinton was miles ahead in the polls, and many assumed that she would stroll to victory ahead of Republican nominee Donald Trump. Clinton was at the center of an email scandal that dragged on for months. Comey had announced that no action would be taken against Clinton, and then, just before election day, he announced that he had reopened the investigation.
The Clinton camp has insisted that Comey’s actions played into Trump’s hands and cost Clinton the presidency. Earlier this week, James Comey was forced to appear in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on FBI oversight to defend his investigation of Hillary Clinton and the timing of his announcement. The Washington Post has released a full transcript of Comey’s testimony, and it shows that the FBI Director is unrepentant. In fact, Comey says that he would do the same thing again.
Comey accepted that he had no evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton when he decided to reopen the investigation of Clinton’s emails. FBI operatives had told Comey that there were thousands of Clinton’s emails on a computer seized from the disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner. Comey had also been briefed that the investigation of that computer could not be completed before election day.
Comey decided that some of those messages were “classified” and that they might include some of the missing emails from Clinton’s early months as secretary of state. Comey says that he decided that he should write a “private letter” to lawmakers revealing that he was authorizing further investigation in the Clinton email affair. Of course, that letter was made public, and many believe it ended any hope that Clinton would win the presidential election.
Hillary Clinton Blames Comey, The FBI, Misogyny And The Russians For Her Election Defeat
Hillary Clinton seems to be having a hard time accepting that she lost to Donald Trump. As reported by KTQE News earlier this week, Clinton told the Women for Women International’s annual luncheon in New York that her campaign was not perfect. Secretary Clinton went on to claim that if the election had been held on October 27 she would be president.
“It wasn’t a perfect campaign. There is no such thing. I was on the way to winning until a combination of [FBI Director] James 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.
“If the election were on Oct. 27, I would be your president. [Russian President Vladimir Putin] certainly interfered in our election, and it’s clear he interfered to hurt me and help my opponent.”
Clinton also claimed to have been the victim of misogyny, stating that it is “very much a part of the landscape politically, socially and economically.”
It does seem clear that Comey’s letter undermined trust in Hillary Clinton, but trust was an issue for the former first lady long before the letter was made public. Way back in July 2016, MSNBC reported that 67 percent of voters did not trust Hillary Clinton. After that date, reports by WikiLeaks, the ongoing email saga, and the Clinton camp misleading the media over Clinton’s health issues, combined to erode trust in Clinton further still.
Business Times claim that Clinton wants to blame everyone except herself for her electoral disaster. They argue that it was a lack of trust, and Clinton’s failure “to mobilize the coalition of non-whites, young voters, single women and college-educated whites who propelled Barack Obama to victory in 2008 and 2012.”
There were doubtless many reasons for Hillary Clinton’s presidential election defeat. For many Americans, the issue was simple, they trusted Donald Trump more than they did Hillary Clinton.
[Featured Image by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Images]
