Bernie Sanders on Monday refused to blame James Comey for Hillary Clinton’s stunning defeat — just moments after a top New York Democrat said the FBI director should be fired.
Sanders, who lost a hotly contested race for the Democratic nod, said Clinton was wrong to lash out at Comey, who dropped a bombshell 11 days before the election saying his probe of the former secretary of state’s email scandal might not be done.
“That’s a minor look [issue],” Sanders said on CBS, insisting Clinton didn’t lose because of Comey’s revelation.
“It’s not a question of what happens in the last week. The question is that she should have won this election by 10 percentage points.”
Earlier Monday, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-Manhattan) told CNN that Comey’s announcement was improper and went against FBI rules that bar discussing an active probe.
“The president ought to fire Comey immediately,” Nadler said. “He violated all the guidelines and put his thumb on the scale of an election.”
Comey wrote a letter to Republican leaders in Congress, saying his agents had found new evidence that could be tied to Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.
It turned out to be emails linked to disgraced ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Nine days after dropping his bombshell and two days before Election Day, Comey said the Weiner emails turned out to be irrelevant.
“To send that (Oct. 28) letter, when he had nothing to say, violated the guidelines that you don’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” Nadler said. “You don’t intervene in an election within 60 days, (it) may very well have cost her the election.”
Sanders downplayed Comey’s impact and instead pinned Clinton’s loss on the Democratic Party’s failure to connect with white working-class, non-college-educated voters.
“I will tell you I think there needs to be a profound change in the way the Democratic Party does business. It is not good enough to have a liberal elite,” said Sanders, the Brooklyn-raised son of Polish immigrants.
“I come from the white working class and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people from where I came from.”
When host Charlie Rose asked Sanders if he would have beaten Trump, the Vermont senator declined to play Monday morning quarterback.
“Hindsight is great, Charlie. I don’t know the answer to that — maybe, maybe not,” Sanders said. “But this is what I do know: I know that the Democratic Party has got to stand with the working people of this country — feel their pain and take on the billionaire class, take on Wall Street, take on the drug companies.”