Hillary Clinton was stunned when then-FBI Director James Comey reopened the agency's investigation into her private email server just days before the 2016 election, she told
TODAY on Wednesday in her first live interview since the race.
"I was just dumbfounded. I thought, 'What is he doing?' The investigation was closed — I know there's no new information," Clinton said about Comey's Oct. 28 letter that reintroduced his agency’s probe of her emails.
"And then it became clear, this was not necessary, he could've called me up, he could've called others involved up and said, 'Hey, can we look at this new stuff just to make sure it's stuff we had before?'" she said.
"I feel very strongly that he went way beyond his role in doing what he did," Clinton added.
Comey's decision to reopen the probe has been credited as one of many factors that contributed to Donald Trump's surprise win in November.
Clinton, however, called it "the determining factor" in her loss.
"It stopped my momentum, it drove voters from me," Clinton said. "And so that, in terms of my personal defeat, was the most important factor."
She also pointed to "endemic sexism and misogyny, not just in politics, but in our society" and Russian interference in the race as reasons for her loss — although she wouldn't say whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the race.
Clinton, however, said that if she'd been elected, she "would have stopped at nothing to make sure this never happened again to anybody."
Clinton's interview came a day after the official release of her book, “What Happened,” in which she reflects on her loss in last year’s election, discussing some of her “own shortcomings and the mistakes we made.”
"I take responsibility for all of them," she wrote in the memoir. "In my more introspective moments, I do recognize that my campaign in 2016 lacked the sense of urgency and passion that I remember from (Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign)."
But the former secretary of state also used the book to settle scores with those whom she says kept her from the White House, including Comey, Bernie Sanders, Green Party nominee Jill Stein, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Russian meddling, and the media.
Meanwhile, the White House weighed in Tuesday on Clinton's book, with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling reporters that she's not sure whether the president plans to read the book since he's "pretty well-versed on what happened."
"I think it's sad that after Hillary Clinton ran one of the most negative campaigns in history and lost ... the last chapter of her public life is going to be now defined by propping up book sales with false and reckless attacks," Sanders said. "And I think that that's a sad way for her to continue this work.
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