Hillary Clinton Says F.B.I. Cost Her the Election

Hillary Clinton told donors Saturday that president-elect Trump's suprising upset on election night was caused in large part by F.B.I. director James Comey.

Comey re-opened an investigation into Secretary Clinton's private email server after the F.B.I. came across more emails while doing an inquiry into Anthony Weiner, who was caught sexting with an underage girl. Comey wrote a letter to Congress only 11 days before the election. The issue was thrust into the spotlight once again and Clinton was unable to recover the trust of voters who were already weary of her as a candidate.

"There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful," said Secretary Clinton, a donor told The New York Times. "Our analysis is that Comey's letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum."

Comey sent a letter two days before the election stating that though the F.B.I. did not find anything incriminating, he still felt that Clinton should face charges for having a private email server.

Clinton referenced that her campaign was leading polls in swing states before Comey's letter to Congress. But after the letter, "we dropped, and we had to keep really pushing to regain our advantage, which going into last weekend we had."

"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," said Secretary Clinton. "And we were feeling like we had to put it back together."