Hillary Clinton said on Saturday she is advising candidates about what it is like to have an election “stolen” during an “Evening with the Clintons” event in Los Angeles, Calif.
“You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you,” Clinton said she has been telling candidates who have come to see her. The comment was met with cheers.
Clinton’s 2016 campaign was targeted by Russian interference efforts, which included stolen emails from her campaign chairman that were leaked to the public, and a social media disinformation effort.
The two-time failed presidential candidate has a long list of people and entities for which she has blamed for her defeat to President Trump, including but not limited to misogyny, the FBI, sexism, the National Rifle Association, and Russia. Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots, but lost the Electoral College 304 to 227.
Clinton has warned that Russia will reengage and try to boost Trump in the 2020 election, and said during an event last weekend that she has told candidates, “there would still be factors that would undermine a legitimate election.”
Clinton’s latest comments come weeks after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling, which found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, but left open the question of obstruction of justice by the president. Although Attorney General William Barr said he determined there was insufficient evidence for obstruction, Clinton remarked: “The Mueller report could not be clearer, the Russians interfered in our election and Trump obstructed justice.”
The appearance also follows new details from a recently released update to New York Times Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker’s book Obama: The Call of History, which said former President Barack Obama blamed Clinton for Trump’s 2016 victory, seeing it as a “personal insult,” and pinned it specifically on his former secretary of state’s “scripted, soulless campaign.”
According to the New York Post, the price of tickets for Bill and Hillary Clinton’s speaking tour have dropped significantly since it was announced in November.