Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has blamed her defeat in the 2016 presidential election on Russia and FBI director James Comey, saying that their interference "scared off" voters.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate who lost the November election to President Donald Trump, made the remarks on May 2 at a women's forum in New York.
Clinton noted the release on October 7 of an old video in which Trump is crudely discusses groping women -- and how, "within an hour or two" of that tape release, the Russian theft of Clinton staffers' e-mails was made public on WikiLeaks.
"What a coincidence. You just can't make this stuff up," Clinton told the gathering.
Clinton said she took "absolute personal responsibility" for a series of campaign blunders that contributed to her loss against Trump.
But she pointed a finger at Russian hacking and interference and, most notably, at the FBI director who revealed just before the November 8 election he was reopening a probe into Clinton's use of a personal e-mail server while secretary of state.
"I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim 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," Clinton said.