Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told her top supporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin directed interference in the U.S. election out of a 'personal beef' against her, in a ploy she said undermined U.S. democracy.

Clinton, who spoke at a party she threw for top donors in New York, stated as the motive her own criticism of 'flawed' Russian parliamentary elections that paved the way for Putin's return to power in 2011.

'Putin publicly blamed me for the outpouring of outrage by his own people, and that is the direct line between what he said back then and what he did in this election,' she said.

The New York Times obtained audio of Clinton's remarks at an event that was meant to financial backers for her $1 billion ultimately unsuccessful campaign.

She said Russia hit back at her with an effort to 'undermine our democracy.'

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday called Russian hacking during the elections an 'attack against our country'

'Make no mistake, as the press is finally catching up to the facts, which we desperately tried to present to them during the last months of the campaign,' Clinton said, in just one of her lines that hinted at her deep resentment.

She called it a 'unprecedented Russian plot to swing this election.'

In her remarks, Clinton also called out FBI director James Comey, and points to an analysis by political polling expert Nate Silver that pointed to a drop in her support among late-breaking voters in swing states following the release of a bombshell Comey letter indicating that investigators were resuming an investigation of Clinton's emails.

Comey ultimately released another letter two days before the election stating that the bureau hadn't learned anything to change its prior decision, having announced he would not recommend charges against Clinton.

'Swing-state voters made their decisions in the final days breaking against me because of the F.B.I. letter from Director Comey,' Clinton said.

She pointed to her popular vote margin of about 3 million votes over Trump, and even spoke about her 2008 loss to President Obama.

Clinton vented about the elections days after a report that CIA officials have concluded that the intention of Russian-directed hacking was to get President-elect Donald Trump elected president.

Hillary Clinton addressed some of her top financial supporters at The Plaza Hotel on Thursday night, and delivered extended remarks on Russian hacking

Hacked aide Podesta calls FBI 'deeply broken' in op-ed Clinton unloaded on the Russians and Comey just hours after her campaign chair, John Podesta, released an op-ed in the Washington Post calling the FBI 'deeply broken.' Podesta, whose Gmail account was targeted in a phishing scheme that led to the disclosure of thousands of damaging and embarrassing emails, contrasted the FBI's 'painstaking' response to the Clinton email scandal, which director James Comey said required thousands of hours of effort, to how the bureau handled the early stages of the hack of the Democratic National Committee. He referenced a New York Times story about the hacking that revealed an agent first broke the news to the DNC by telephoning the help desk. The staffer who took the call wasn't initially confident that the FBI caller was legitimate. The failure to have an FBI agent visit the targeted building, just a few minutes away in Washington DC, was presented as one of many inept responses. 'Of course, as Comey himself concluded, in the end, there was no case; it was not even a close call,' Podesta wrote, referring to the email scandal. Comey in fact cited Clinton for being extremely careless, but said there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute. '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. 'There are now reports that Vladimir Putin personally directed the covert campaign to elect Trump,' Podesta wrote. 'So are teams of FBI agents busy looking into the reported meeting in Moscow this summer between Carter Page, a Trump foreign policy advisor, and the Putin aide in charge of Russian intelligence on the U.S. election?' 'What about evidence that [Trump advisor] Roger Stone is in contact with WikiLeaks and knew in advance that my hacked emails were about to be leaked? Are thousands of FBI person-hours being devoted to uncovering Trump’s tangled web of debts and business deals in Russia and elsewhere?' he wrote. President Obama mentioned Podesta during his White House press conference Friday as he tried to make a joke about some of the emails, even as he scolded the press for doing the Kremlin's dirty work. 'I’m finding it a little curious that everybody’s suddenly acting surprised that this looked like it was disadvantaging Hillary Clinton because you you guys wrote about it every day,' Obama said. 'Every single leak. Every little juicy tidbit of political gossip – including john Podesta’s risotto recipe. This was an obsession that dominated the news coverage,' the president said. Podesta called on the administration to declassify as much information as possible about the hacking, brief members of the Electoral College before they meet on Monday, and authorize a bipartisan, independent investigation. 'The public deserves to know exactly what happened, why and what can be done to prevent future attacks,' he said. Advertisement

When Clinton said the activity was something 'every American should be worried about,' a member of the crowd yelled, out, 'No kidding!'

'This is not just an attack on me and my campaign, although that may have added fuel to it. This is an attack against our country,' Clinton said.

'We are well beyond normal political concerns here. This is about the integrity of our democracy and the security of our nation.'

She made her remarks just days before the Electoral College is to meet to elect Trump, and hours before President Obama's final news conference of the year.

Her campaign chairman John Podesta, who got hacked, is calling on security agencies to brief members of the electoral college.

'I am in an odd historic position,' Clinton said. 'Back in 2008 I won slightly more votes than president Obama but lost the delegates, and now I won 3 million more votes than Donald Trump but fell short in the Electoral College.'

'I know how the system works, probably better than everybody else. But there were some unprecedented factors that I don't think we can ignore,' she said.

'There were some unprecedented factors that I don't think we can ignore,' she said.

She brought up Silver's analysis of polling around the time of Comey's letter 12 days before the elections.

'Nate Silver believes, I happen to believe this, that that [Comey] letter most likely made the difference in the outcome.'

Turning back to Putin's return to power after leaving office and becoming Prime Minister, she called the Russian parliamentary elections she called 'flawed' and so 'illegitimate' that it was 'embarrassing.'

'At least in those years we stood up for democracy and human rights,' she said.

She called it a 'phony attempt for him to appear as if he had a parliamentary victory.'

'We have to recognize ... Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyber attacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me,' Clinton said.

She said Putin was 'determined not only to score a point against me - which he did,' but to undermine U.S. democracy.

She called it 'part of a long term strategy to cause us to doubt ourselves and to create the circumstances in which Americans either wittingly or unwittingly will begin to cede their freedoms to a much more powerful state.'

Clinton's remarks also make clear her lingering resentment toward the press, which reported on Russian hacking but also delved into internal campaign and Clinton Foundation intrigue after internal emails got posted on WikiLeaks and other sites.

'As the press is finally catching up to the facts – which we desperately tried to present to them during the last months of the campaign,' she said.

'This is not just an attack against me and my campaign ... This is an attack on our country. We are well beyond normal political concerns here,' she said.

Clinton called for an investigation modeled on the Sept. 11th commission, saying it should 'do everything possible to get to the bottom of what happened.'

She spoke of the 'mud of politics,' and said 'I have over 66 million reasons to be proud of our country,' she said, referencing her popular vote total.

Clinton arrived at the Plaza on Thursday night and was pictured sitting in the back of a black car as it was directed into the hotel's loading dock garage

Clinton beamed as she attended a fundraiser for her hosted by Hollywood director Harvey Weinstein in June in New York. Her event Thursday was a thank you for financial campaign backers

The costly holiday party was being held at New York's famed Plaza Hotel

'I know how the system works, probably better than everybody else. But there were some unprecedented factors that I don't think we can ignore,' she said.

'There were some unprecedented factors that I don't think we can ignore,' she said.

She brought up Silver's analysis of polling around the time of Comey's letter 12 days before the elections.

'Nate Silver believes, I happen to believe this, that that [Comey] letter most likely made the difference in the outcome.'

Turning back to Putin's return to power after leaving office and becoming Prime Minister, she called the Russian parliamentary elections she called 'flawed' and so 'illegitimate' that it was 'embarrassing.'

'At least in those years we stood up for democracy and human rights,' she said.

She called it a 'phony attempt for him to appear as if he had a parliamentary victory.'

'We have to recognize ... Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyber attacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me,' Clinton said.