Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton, Democratic Party in the 2016 Presidential Election in the U.S., has blamed her loss on negative events late in the campaign, including an FBI investigation.

She also fingered “Russia-linked hacking” of her campaign for the defeat by President Donald Trump of the Republican Party.

In New York on Tuesday, Clinton said she was “on the way to winning in late October, before a combination of events influenced people who were inclined to vote for [her] but got scared off’’.

She cited FBI Chief, James Comey’s letter to Congress that his agency was probing new information about her long-investigated use of email as Secretary of State from 2009-2013.

She added that Wikileaks revelations of hacked emails from Democratic Party officials also played a role in the “disaster”.

Clinton said the “events in the last 10 days” were the reason why she thought that her campaign lost.

She said that “unprecedented interference” by a foreign power and its leader, clearly referencing Russian President, Vladimir Putin, had overwhelming impact in the electoral process.

U.S. intelligence agencies had said that Russia-linked hackers appeared to have targeted the Democratic Party as well as flooding social media with negative, often false information.

“[Putin] certainly interfered in our election, and it was clear he interfered to hurt me and help my opponent,” Clinton said.

The former first lady said she was engaged in the “cathartic” activity of writing a book, adding that it was “a painful process reliving the campaign”.

Since the election, left-wing activists have organised against her opponent, President Trump, including using a “resist” theme on social media.

“I’m back to being an activist citizen and part of the resistance,” Clinton said.

(dpa/NAN)