This new information is allegedly being released in an upcoming book that describes a dinner conversation between Clinton and Powell, in which he told her to use her own email for everything but classified information. Even if this is true, it would seem she didn’t listen.
Reuters could not independently verify the report. Representatives for Clinton could not be immediately reached late on Thursday.
Colin Powell’s office in a statement said he could not recall the dinner conversation. He did recall describing the system he used to her, but the statement did not say he suggested Clinton do the same.
“He did write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department,” the statement said. “At the time there was no equivalent system within the department.”
He used a secure department computer to manage classified information, the statement said.
Powell has said he had no choice besides using his private account as the department did not have a fully functioning email system of its own when he joined in 2001.
Now one can certainly envision that a conversation between Powell and Hillary took place, and I would not at all be surprised if Hillary was looking for ways to avoid having a State Department e-mail account because she knew its contents would be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests and congressional subpoenas. In fact, I’m certain she was looking for a way to avoid that.
But to suggest it was Colin Powell’s idea that she do exactly what she did is insane.
Blaming Powell as a defense isn’t exactly a great strategy, because it’s not really a defense at all. If you take that into account and the fact that when Powell was relevant, email wasn’t even a decade old. Nowhere in that dinner conversation did Powell tell Hillary to have somebody homebrew her and email server that she could eventually hide in somebody bathroom in Colorado.
Source: canadafreepress.com
