Following her shocking defeat at the hands of Donald Trump in this week’s presidential election, Hillary Clinton and her supporters are looking to place blame somewhere, and it seems FBI director James Comey is now in the crosshairs.
In a conference call with top campaign investors on Saturday, Clinton claimed that by sending Congress a letter regarding her email server investigation just days prior to the election, Comey drastically affected voter outlook, subverting otherwise positive polling data into Trump’s favor.
The email server scandal was a major point of contention throughout Clinton’s presidential campaign, for which she drew considerable criticism from the public during the Democratic primaries. The scandal also served as a major talking point for Donald Trump’s campaign against her, calling for her to stand trial and possibly face imprisonment for such a breach in national security.
While Hillary had been cleared of all charges in two separate statements from James Comey, the timing of these allegations no doubt affected her performance in the election. However, the blame for Hillary Clinton’s defeat cannot be placed singly on the hands of the FBI director.
Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee are ultimately at fault for losing to Trump, be it in their choice of candidate, their inability to successfully assuage voter opinion of Clinton, or both. Clinton shifting blame in this conference call is a move clearly meant to ease the doubts of her campaign investors, who collectively raised over $900 million in support of her, an investment that has proven fruitless.
Moving forward, Clinton and the DNC need to look carefully at their shortcomings and rectify them not just for the 2020 election, but for the sake of the country as a whole.
