Hillary Clinton Defends Funding Trump-Russia Dossier: ‘Of Course’ It’s Not Collusion

It’s the big talking point that Fox News and the White House have been pushing all week: The “real Russia collusion” had everything to do with Hillary Clinton and nothing to do with Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, in his first-ever interview with the former secretary of state, Trevor Noah gave her a chance to answer those charges. The Daily Show host brought up the “Clinton dossier,” or as he put it “the document involving Donald Trump and pee” that was at least partially funded by her campaign. “People say, Hillary, is there a difference between your team paying for this opposition research and Donald Trump’s people working with the Russians to influence the election?”

“Of course there is,” Clinton replied. “And I think most serious people understand that.” She obviously does not put Sean Hannity in that category.

Clinton went on to explain that the research that led to the so-called dossier was originally funded by a Republican donor during the Republican primary. It was only after Trump got the nomination that the firm came to Clinton’s campaign and asked if they wanted to continue it.

“From my perspective, it didn’t come out before the election, as we all know,” Clinton said of the dossier, a leaked version of which was first published by BuzzFeed in January 2017. “And what also didn’t come out, which I think is an even bigger problem, as I write in the book, is that the American people didn’t even know that the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign, because of connections with Russia starting in the summer of 2016.”

“I know that voters should have had that information, that’s something that may have influenced some people,” Clinton added, betraying her obvious frustration with the way things ended up.

Later in the interview, Noah was booed by his own audience for repeating a question he said he has heard others in the Democratic Party ask: “Why won’t you just go away?”

“Some of it is just rank sexism, let’s be honest about it,” Clinton said. “I never heard anybody say that to Al Gore or John Kerry or John McCain or Mitt Romney, all the men who lost elections in the last 17, 18 years.”

Another part of it, she added, is “media guilt” by reporters who “now have to face the way they covered this campaign.”

“They missed it,” Clinton said. “They thought I was going to win so they could beat up on me without consequence and they didn’t really stand up against all the ridiculous lies and accusations against me.”

Thirdly, she said, there are those who are “genuinely worried that we’ve got to make room for new voices.” Clinton explained that she wants to help those people get their message out. “I’m going to keep talking, I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I walked in the woods, that was enough, I’m done with that, I’m back.”