US election: Hillary Clinton blames FBI director James Comey for election loss in call to donors

Updated November 13, 2016 09:23:55

Hillary Clinton has blamed FBI director James Comey for her stunning defeat in Tuesday's presidential election in a conference call with her top campaign funders, according to two participants involved in the phone hook-up.

Mrs Clinton was projected by nearly every national public opinion poll as the heavy favourite going into Tuesday's race.

Key points:

• Clinton 'blames' FBI boss in phone call to donors
• Second email probe announced and then finalised days before the election
• Anti-Trump protests continue for a third night in cities across the US

Instead, Republican Donald Trump won the election, shocking many throughout the nation and prompting widespread protests.

Mrs Clinton has kept a low profile since her defeat after delivering her concession speech on Wednesday morning.

On the phone call with supporters on Saturday, the Democrat presidential candidate said her campaign and the national party had raised $US900 million from more than three million individual donors, according to the two participants who spoke to Reuters.

Mrs Clinton said Mr Comey was at fault for her loss after he decided to send a letter to Congress only days before the election announcing that he was reinstating an investigation into whether she mishandled classified information when she used a private email server while secretary of state from 2009 to 2012.

"There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful," Mrs Clinton told top donors on a farewell conference call, The Washington Post reported.

"But our analysis is that Comey's letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum."

Mr Comey announced a week later that he had reviewed emails and continued to believe she should not be prosecuted, but the political damage was already done.

She told donors that Mr Trump was able to seize on both of the FBI director's announcements and use them to attack her, according to two participants on the call.

While the second letter cleared her of wrongdoing, Mrs Clinton said that reinforced to Mr Trump's supporters that the system was rigged in her favour and motivated them to mobilise on Election Day.

A spokesperson for Mrs Clinton could not immediately be reached for comment.

First posted November 13, 2016 09:08:48

Source : abc[dot]net[dot]au