| Advertisement |
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- An email sent to Hillary Clinton by her predecessor as secretary of state, Colin Powell, detailed ways he circumvented State Department protocol by using a private email address. Clinton has previously said she was advised by Powell he used a non-government AOL account to communicate with staff and world leaders, and intentionally kept it hidden in order to skirt burdensome State Department regulations about document retention.
Advertisement
In the email to Clinton, Powell made it clear he took specific steps to avoid detection when using the AOL account.
"What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient). So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels," Powell wrote.
Powell's email to Clinton was a follow-up to a conversation the two had at a dinner party thrown by another former secretary of state, Madeline Albright, where a tight-knit group of former top diplomats who have held the job for both parties attended to give Clinton advice on how to handle things.
After her use of a private email server became public, Clinton told the FBI she set it up in part after receiving advice from Powell, who said his use of a private account made life easier. Clinton, however, said that advice did not factor into her decision to use the private server.
Powell has denied he encouraged Clinton to break protocol in handling classified information via email. He said his AOL account was only used for nonclassified personal communications and that all classified emails were opened solely using a desktop computer inside his office in Foggy Bottom, never on personal devices such as a Blackberry.
He did, however, warn Clinton that even private emails could become part of the State Department's official record if officials found out about them, saying "there is real danger."
"Government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law," he said. "Be very careful ... I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data."
After Clinton's statements to the FBI about Powell's advice were publicized, Powell responded angrily, saying Clinton was trying to save herself while "her people are trying to pin it on me."
The email was released by congressional Democrats angry it had not been included in batches of previously released Clinton emails as a means to demonstrate her use of a private email server was not unique.
Though it became public as part of a partisan squabble, the email itself shows Powell, a Republican, warmly addressing Clinton, a show of private bipartisan comity rarely on display in Washington. Two days before she was to begin her tenure as secretary of state, Powell also offers her tips on how to handle her security detail, which Powell said he found constrictive and "had Maddy tied up in knots," referring to Albright, another Democrat.
He signed the correspondence, "Love, Colin."
