Hillary said Thursday that misogyny "certainly" played a role in her bruising defeat to Donald Trump

Hillary said Thursday that misogyny "certainly" played a role in her bruising defeat to Donald Trump. Agree. We definitely hated that stupid and selfish woman. 

Hillary Clinton said Thursday that misogyny "certainly" played a role in her bruising defeat to Donald Trump in last year's US presidential election, giving her first public interview since that shock loss.

"I don't know that there is one answer," she told the Women in the World Summit in New York when asked why a majority of white women voted for a Republican who had boasted of groping women.

"Certainly misogyny played a role, I mean that just has to be admitted," added the former secretary of state, who was treated to an ecstatic welcome and standing ovation from the crowd.

"I think in this election there was a very real struggle between what is viewed as change that is welcomed and exciting to so many Americans and change which is worrisome and threatening to so many others.

"And layer on the first woman president over that and I think some people, women included, had real problems," she told a New York Times journalist at the ticketed women's empowerment event held each year.

While the vastly experienced Clinton won the popular vote, she lost the electoral college to the businessman who had never previously held public office, upending the world and the US political establishment.

Having dreamt for years of making history as America's first woman president, Clinton admitted the aftermath had been "devastating."

- 'So troubling' -

The former Democratic presidential nominee spoke at length, covering a range of issues that included calling on the United States to take out Syrian air fields in the wake of a suspected chemical weapons attack.

"I really believe that we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people," she said of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

She slammed Russian interference trying to sway the outcome for Trump as "an act of aggression," warned Moscow was capable of doing it, and called for a bipartisan commitment to make sure it did not happen.

"Everything that has come to light in the days and weeks since have been all so troubling so I just had to make up my mind that 'yes, I was going to get out of bed," she said.

The 69-year-old is now slowly emerging from post-election seclusion to make speeches, promote young people and to encourage more women to get involved in politics. In the first weeks, she largely disappeared from public view, walking in the woods outside her Chappaqua, New York home.

Clinton said family and friends "rallied around me in an amazing way" and used the platform Thursday to level barbs against the Trump administration, which she said was going through "some very public growing pains."

"As a person, I'm ok. As an American I'm pretty worried," she said.

- 'Immaculate conception' -

"The things that come out of some of these men's mouths, like why do we have to cover maternity care? Oh I don't know, maybe you were dropped by immaculate conception?" she said.

While the former first lady and senator chalked up her electoral defeat to "lots of contributing factors" she admitted there were "certainly" things and she and her campaign could have done better.

But she repeated blame dished out last year before campaign donors that FBI intervention over her email scandal and Russian attempts to sway the outcome of vote in Trump's favor were chiefly to blame.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, she said, wanted to destabilize Europe, NATO and the United States and was personally opposed to her after she criticized Russian elections while secretary of state.

"He's not exactly fond of strong women," she said of Putin.

The former candidate finished by saying she had no plans to run for office again.

"I am really focused on just doing some things that I think I can help make a difference with, like this supporting of young people and getting more women into politics, and I very much want to help Democrats take back the Congress," she said to cheers.

"I am looking at doing interesting things -- I don't think that will include ever running for office again," she added.

Assange insists Wikileaks exposed the TRUTH behind Clinton's Establishment 'cronies'

JULIAN Assange has vehemently denied allegations that he sought to help Donald Trump's election bid and instead insists he merely gave the world the truth.

Mr  Assange condemned reports that he tried to help Donald Trump win the US Presidency. 

The Wikileaks founder said viewers ought to blame Hillary Clinton, not him, for what was revealed in his notorious leaks during the campaign season.

He also said that the "ball was in America's court" when asked whether he will ever leave the Ecuadorian embassy.

Mr Assange has been living in the embassy in London for the past four years, avoiding an attempt by Sweden to extradite him over sex attack allegations.

Contrary to allegations that he was biased against Mrs Clinton's candidacy, Mr Assange told Peston on Sunday: "I did not have a position in relation to Clinton.

"Yes, we suffered under Obama and Clinton, who engaged in an epidemic against sources, prosecuting three times as many journalists as all previous presidencies combined.

"But we merely exposed the truth behind the candidates."

Mr Assange also criticised the "partisan nature" of journalists and said that Mr Trump was valid to call out reporters' inaccuracies. 

He added: "If he is hostile to their accuracy, we understand that. He can complain about that. That's okay."

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Mr Assange refused to deny that Russians fed Wikileaks the information on Mrs Clinton

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The Wikileaks founder said viewers ought to blame Hillary Clinton, not him, for what was revealed

allegations that he helped Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin through his leaksduring the campaign season.

Mr Assange said: "Let's look at the actual allegations.

"Wikileaks published the authentic words of Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff.

"We revealed what she said in secret to Goldman Sachs and the way she rigged the election against Bernie Sanders.

"We showed this. It was a matter for the American people whether they liked that or not.

"It's a matter Clinton and her campaign staff what they choose to do and what they choose to say."

GETTY

Assange went on to reject allegations that he helped Donald Trump

Despite Mr Peston's questions, Mr Assange refused to deny that Russians fed Wikileaks the information on Mrs Clinton.

However, he also said that there was a "complete lack of understanding of Wikileaks" from the outside world.

As for his future, the Wikileaks leader confirmed the "ball was in the US court" over his pledge to leave the embassy following the decision to release whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

He added: “We have approached the DoJ, saying are they going to drop this case?

"We say it's unconstitutional, it is unlawful, that it should not be pursued. What are they going to do?

"We haven’t heard back from the DoJ yet, the ball is in their court."

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Analysis: After Clinton's defeat, what's the path for future women presidential candidates?

The first woman president was supposed to make history by accumulating such deep experience that few could deny her ability to serve as commander in chief.

Hillary Clinton did that, and lost, but the road to a female presidency is still open provided that the right female figure runs for it. 

Now women politicians and those working to elect them — Democrats and Republicans alike — are sifting through her defeat to understand what her loss means for future women candidates and to find a future path.

Their effort is complicated by the very things that made Clinton’s nomination both inevitable and troubled: her singular standing and unique negatives.

While the number of women elected to office has grown markedly over the decades, polling shows that in a race for the White House they still must demonstrate they are capable of commanding the government and in particular the U.S. military, a masculine institution despite its own gender strides.

That inevitably conflicts with another voter demand: for a fresh face — like that, say, of President Obama, who defeated Clinton in the Democratic primaries in 2008 in part because he appealed to voters’ desire for change.

“You can’t get those qualifications, get that résumé, while also being able to present yourself as a change candidate,” said Kelly Dittmar, an assistant professor of political science at Rutgers University-Camden and a scholar at Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics.

“Men aren’t held to the same standard of proving their credentials.”

Clinton’s experience won her plaudits from voters who throughout the campaign saw her as best prepared to assume the presidency. That may have helped her win the popular vote, but she lost the electoral college to a man who had never before run for elective office or served in government.

Most damaging, she was unable to fully benefit from the advantages that usually flow to a woman candidate — being seen by voters as more honest, trustworthy and both a unifier and the one who most cares about constituents’ concerns.

That has left a puzzle: How much of the loss reflected Clinton’s particular vulnerabilities, how much involved opposition that any future woman candidate may face?

Unquestionably, Clinton faced unique problems: Her decision as secretary of State to use a private email server, which led to extended controversies; media coverage of separate Democratic emails now believed to have been hacked by Russian operatives; and a relentless line of assault casting her as corrupt, first by primary challenger Bernie Sanders and later by Trump.

She also faced a unique opponent, Donald Trump, whose image of swashbuckling masculinity shaped the campaign more than any of Clinton’s milder efforts to use gender to her advantage.

Clinton’s supporters have been left counting smaller victories, like the fact that she won more votes than any candidate ever, apart from President Obama.

They are also casting Clinton’s reach for history as part of a decades-long effort that, by definition, includes stumbles.

“It’s been a struggle, it’s always been a struggle — that’s the nature of the fight for equality,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who was elected in 1992, a year when the number of women senators tripled.

“The fact that we got to have first woman nominee of a major party is an enormous breakthrough, and we’ll build on that,” she said.

But others suggest that this year’s campaign portends trouble for whichever women come next.

At a recent panel discussion at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, which included representatives from both campaigns, Trump’s manager, Kellyanne Conway, argued that the country was ready to elect a woman president — just not this particular woman in a year in which voters demanded change.

“On gender, it wasn’t a hypothetical,” she said of voters’ options. “It was Hillary. So it’s not just a woman; it’s one that people had lived with for quite a while.”

That drew a pained response from Clinton’s media strategist, Mandy Grunwald, who suggested that Clinton had rare standing to be seen as a potential commander in chief, given her tenure as secretary of State, U.S. senator from New York and as a first lady deeply involved in policy matters.

“You may think the country is ready for a woman, any old woman, just a different one. There are very few people who will ever meet that test,” Grunwald said, adding: “I hope I am wrong.”

Clinton’s campaign was a real-world test that shined a bright light at some of the downsides of women’s candidacies.

The degree of punishment she took from voters concerned about perceived ethical lapses was one of those. Throughout the campaign, prompted by broadsides from Sanders and Trump, voters were sharply critical of Clinton when it came to honesty and truthfulness.

The virulence of their sentiments suggested that women, usually held in high regard on those fronts, suffer more than male candidates when seen as not meeting that standard.

For women candidates, “that fall from the pedestal may be longer and harder,” said Dittmar.

Clinton’s perceived ethical difficulties, she noted, took more of a toll than Trump’s arguably larger constellation of problems, which included repetitive falsehoods, wrongdoing by his foundation, tax issues and the fraud case leveled against Trump University.

“One reason could be that we expected it,” she said. “We expect that men have those issues.”

And while Clinton benefited to some extent from the prospect of being an historic first, Trump successfully made gender arguments of his own.

He made gender-based gibes at Clinton throughout his campaign, much as he had sought to diminish his primary opponents by mocking their height or lack of combativeness or, in the case of Republican candidate Carly Fiorina, her looks.

He talked tough, invoking the specter of violence, repeatedly and on a range of issues. His official health report listed his testosterone level, an atypical disclosure that stood out given the lack of detail he released on other health questions. His campaign did nothing to push back against vulgar references to women on T-shirts and campaign buttons at his events.

Whatever the motive for that style, it appealed to concerns that many voters still have about a woman commander in chief and women’s role in society.

An April poll by PRRI/The Atlantic asked whether Americans felt society “has become too soft and feminine.” Two in five voters said that it had; among Trump supporters, 68% said so.

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Inside the Clinton email search warrant

According to the affidavit, the FBI had already reviewed more than 30,000 emails and found 2,115 contained classified information, including 22 with Top Secret information.

The search warrant that authorized the FBI to examine a laptop in connection with Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state was released today, and the Clinton camp says it shows that Director James Comey's "intrusion" into the election was "utterly unjustified."

Clinton had been dogged by the issue of her private email server throughout the campaign and Comey dealt a surprise blow when he said that the FBI was looking into the emails found on former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner's computer just days before the election.

According to the warrant and supporting documents, investigators said they found thousands of emails belonging to top Hillary Clinton adviser Huma Abedin on the computer belonging to her estranged husband, Weiner. Both of their names are redacted.

The laptop's hard drive, according to sources, was being examined in unrelated investigations into alleged sexting by Weiner.

Warrant Related to Clinton Emails to Be Unsealed Tuesday

Warrant Obtained to Start Reviewing Emails Found on Laptop Used by Clinton Aide

FBI Says Review of New Emails Doesn't Change Conclusion Clinton Shouldn't Be Charged

When discovered, the FBI believed the emails were "outside the scope" of their investigation into Weiner, and did not look at them beyond the subject line and e-mail address information, according to the newly released documents.

According to the affidavit, the FBI had already reviewed more than 30,000 emails and found 2,115 contained classified information, including 22 with Top Secret information.

Analysis of those emails "revealed more than 4,000 work-related emails between [redacted] and Clinton from 2009 and 2013." The redaction is believed to refer to Abedin.

According to the affidavit, the FBI’s prior investigation found that among the 4,000, some 27 email chains containing classified information "have been transmitted through [redacted] and/or [redacted] accounts," which again are believed to be between Abedin and Clinton.

"Because it has been determined by relevant original classification authorities that many emails were exchanged between [redacted] and/or [redacted] accounts and Clinton that contained classified information, there is also probable cause to believe that the correspondence between them located on Subject Laptop contains classified information," the affidavit says.

The FBI search of the laptop came during the final days of the presidential election, months after Comey announced that the bureau had effectively closed its investigation.

E. Randol Schoenberg, a Los Angeles attorney who petitioned to have the documents unsealed, said in a statement to ABC News he was "appalled."

"I see nothing at all in the search warrant application that would give rise to probable cause, nothing that would make anyone suspect that there was anything on the laptop beyond what the FBI had already searched and determined not to be evidence of a crime, nothing to suggest that there would be anything other than routine correspondence between Secretary Clinton and her longtime aide Huma Abedin," he said.

On Oct. 28, Comey disclosed to Congress that the FBI would be looking at the newly discovered emails, but it remains unclear when the emails were discovered and how long it took for that information to be communicated to Comey. The warrant was approved two days later.

Just two days before the election, Comey issued a second letter to Congress, stating, "based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton."

It's unclear what impact Comey's letters had on the election, but Clinton told top donors that she thought Comey's letter to Congress was a turning point in the contest between her and now President-elect Donald Trump.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted today that "the unsealed filings regarding Huma's emails reveals Comey's intrusion on the election was as utterly unjustified as we suspected at time."

Stephen Saltzburg, George Washington University Law Professor, said that Comey didn't need to "run the risk" of making Clinton look even worse right before the election -- a move that broke with FBI protocol about commenting on ongoing investigations.

"They [FBI] had to assure themselves that there was no classified information at risk on a computer that they didn’t have. They had no obligation, however, to go public about what they were doing," he said.

Officials at both the FBI and the Department of Justice declined to comment to ABC News.

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Could Faithless Electors Put Hillary In Office?

Could "faithless electors" put Clinton in office? Trump has 306 electors pledged to him and needs 270 to win. So at least 37 electors pledged to Trump would have to be "faithless" and vote for Clinton or another candidate instead for the Republican to lose.

Electoral College members will meet Monday around the country to place their votes for president of the United States.

It is a constitutionally mandated ritual every four years that this year Americans will watch with interest.

The Electoral College's usually ceremonial role has come under focus in the aftermath of the 2016 election due to a number of factors -- including that Democrat Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by a significant margin, and the finding by the CIA and FBI that Russia used hacking to try to influence the election.

In light of these circumstances, pundits and members of the public are considering what role the 538 electors can and should play in deciding the final outcome of the election.

Public demonstrations opposed to Trump are expected in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., on Monday to encourage electors to vote in line with the national popular vote, protest organizers said. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is spearheading several of the events, said its goal is to talk to electors as they enter the meetings in their respective states to help them feel supported should they decide to vote according to the popular vote.

While it is possible that a few electors who are pledged to Trump could go "faithless" and vote for Clinton or another candidate, most experts expect that Trump will get the 270 electoral votes he needs to win.

Here are some quick insights into the Electoral College vote:

What Happens on Monday? Electors will gather in their respective state capitols to engage in a voting process that is open to the press. The earliest results will likely come in after 10 a.m. ET and the latest around 7 p.m. ET.

Who Are The Electors? The Electoral College has 538 members, a number drawn from the sum of the total number of U.S. senators and House members plus three additional electors for Washington, D.C. All states except Maine and Nebraska are winner-take-all, meaning that whichever candidate wins the state’s popular vote gets all the electors. Maine and Nebraska do it differently: Two electors vote for whoever won the state popular vote, plus one elector for each congressional district goes to whoever won that district.

In most states, electors are chosen among political party activists. “Generally, the parties select members known for their loyalty and service to the party, such as party leaders, state and local elected officials and party activists,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Faithless Electors? ABC News has identified only one elector pledged to Trump -- Chris Suprun from Texas -- who has said he won’t vote for the Republican candidate. Suprun in an interview on ABC News’ "Nightline" this week referred to the Russian hacking, saying he was "concerned when a foreign government intrudes on our elections. They're not doing it with our best interest in mind. I don't think we deserve a classified briefing but I do think we should get as many facts as information we can without compromising sources or methods that the intelligence community can provide."

What about Russia? As of Sunday, 80 electors, all but one of whom are pledged to Clinton, have signed a letter urging Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to give them classified briefings on Russia’s hacking and any of its other cyberactivities related to U.S. elections. Christine Pelosi, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi's daughter, who spearheaded the action, said electors needed to be fully informed on the issue before they cast their votes.

What about Hamilton? Founding father Alexander Hamilton warned in Federalist Paper No. 68 that there may be "the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils." The Electoral College, he implied, could serve as a fail-safe to prevent a candidate who may represent the interests of a foreign power from taking office. Some political activists and Hollywood celebrities opposed to Trump have said Hamilton's words provide a basis for electors to vote against Trump on Monday.

Could "faithless electors" put Clinton in office? Trump has 306 electors pledged to him and needs 270 to win. So at least 37 electors pledged to Trump would have to be "faithless" and vote for Clinton or another candidate instead for the Republican to lose. Thirty states have laws that require electors to vote as pledged. However, no elector in any state has ever been penalized or replaced, and none of these state laws has been fully vetted by the courts, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The last time an elector crossed party lines was in 1972, when an elector nominated by the Republican Party cast his ballot for the Libertarian ticket, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Faithless electors' votes could probably still be counted, according to Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News. Winger said there have been 157 faithless electors in our history, and Congress has counted every single one of those votes except for a case of three electors who voted for a dead man, Horace Greeley, in 1872. But Ned Foley of the Moritz College of Law said that Congress could still stop potential faithless electors, telling ABC News: "Even if there were 37 faithless electors, ultimately what matters is what Congress does on Jan. 6," when it counts electors' votes.

Congress certifies the final election results.

What if no one gets to 270? In the highly unlikely event that neither Clinton nor Trump gets 270 electoral votes, then the House of Representatives would vote and choose the next president.

In Leaked Remarks, Hillary Clinton Explains Putin's 'Beef' With Her

Hillary Clinton spoke at a private event Thursday night. Pictured here, the Democratic presidential candidate walks off the stage after speaking in New York on Nov. 9. Matt Rourke/AP

Clinton has previously blamed the FBI, in part, for her loss. Her campaign staff also has talked about the FBI's role in the election earlier this month at a conference at Harvard's Institute of Politics examining the election results.

Hillary Clinton has kept a low profile since losing the election to Donald Trump, but at a private event before donors Thursday night, she blamed her loss, in part, on "some unprecedented factors" — namely Russian hacking and the letter about the investigation into her email server released by FBI Director James Comey days before the election. "Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyberattacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me," Clinton said, per audio obtained by The New York Times. The event, for campaign donors, was closed to the press. In the remarks, Clinton ties the "beef" to the country's parliamentary elections in 2011, which as secretary of state, Clinton said were "unfair, not free, illegitimate." Around the time of those elections, Russian citizens took to the streets to protest Putin's power grab. "Putin publicly blamed me for the outpouring of outrage by his own people," Clinton said. "And that is the direct line between what he said back then and what he did in this election." These were Clinton's most extensive remarks to date about the Russian hacking, how it may have related to her electoral loss and the origins of what NBC termed as Putin's "vendetta" against Clinton. Clinton has previously blamed the FBI, in part, for her loss. Her campaign staff also has talked about the FBI's role in the election earlier this month at a conference at Harvard's Institute of Politics examining the election results. Clinton's team blamed FBI Director James Comey's two letters in the final days of the campaign as well as Russian-linked hacking of the Democratic National Committee and campaign Chairman John Podesta's personal Gmail account. The argument, one which Clinton repeated last night, is that voters who were undecided until the end broke for Trump because of the Comey letter and the swirling controversy linked to daily WikiLeaks posts of internal campaign emails. In a Washington Post op-ed published Thursday night, Podesta argued the FBI's priorities were off, given that the agency apparently put more emphasis on investigating Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state than Russian interference in the U.S. election. "Comparing the FBI's massive response to the overblown email scandal with the seemingly lackadaisical response to the very real Russian plot to subvert a national election shows that something is deeply broken at the FBI," Podesta wrote. Clinton herself attempted to argue that it was bigger than herself, saying she was pleased to see a bipartisan group of senators calling for an investigation into the hacking. "This is an attack against our country. We are well beyond normal political concerns here," Clinton said. "This is about the integrity of our democracy and the security of our nation." President-elect Trump, however, continues to downplay the significance of the hacking, questioning whether it really was Russia:

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a statement, describing how it plans to proceed with its investigation into the hacking, and the intelligence community's conclusion that it was directed by people at the highest levels of the Russian government. "Majority Leader McConnell and incoming Minority Leader Schumer have made it clear they expect any review of Russia's involvement in our nation's elections to be conducted in a bipartisan manner," the intelligence committee's statement reads. "It is a charge the [committee] takes seriously The statement also says the committee will carry out the investigation expeditiously, "but we will take the time to get it right and will not be influenced by uninformed discourse." Some hearings will be public, but much of the work will be conducted behind closed doors because of the sensitive nature of the committee's work. As for the results of the election, some Democratic Party donors who spoke to Politico questioned whether the focus from Clinton's team on Comey and Russia is productive, saying a full postmortem of what went wrong in the campaign is still needed.




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