According to the New York Times, Clinton told the Federal Bureau of Investigation during her weekend interview on July 2 that Powell – who served as secretary of state in President George W. Bush’s first term – had advised her to use a personal email account.
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According to the accounts from that evening, Albright asked each former Secretary of State to provide one bit of counsel to Clinton.
According to the Democratic nominee, Powell made the suggestions at a small dinner party shortly after Clinton took over at the State Department in 2009 and in an email exchange around the same time, The New York Times first reported.
A federal judge denied Friday a request by a conservative legal watchdog group to depose Hillary Clinton in person over her email server but says she does have to answer written questions. Powell’s office released a statement saying he did not remember the conversation. The statement did admit, however, that Powell “did write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of a personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department”.
Clinton has previously claimed that Powell used the same arrangement she did, but that turned out to be untrue.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is seen in Washington.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan also ordered that John Bentel, a retired State Department employee who managed IT security, be deposed. At that time, Clinton lawyer David Kendall – joined by State and Justice department attorneys – argued questioning of Clinton would be moot because questions about the server had been investigated at length by the FBI, State Department inspector general and Congress.
Clinton had already chose to use private email at this time. Mr. Powell did not have a server at his house or rely on outside contractors, as Mrs. Clinton did at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y.
But Conason isn’t some neutral observer, he’s a liberal who contributes to MSNBC and Salon, and who has been described as a “virulent Clinton defender”.
The State Department has said it intends to review and make public thousands of previously undisclosed work-related Clinton emails that the FBI found in a year-long investigation of Clinton’s server set-up and has turned over to the department.
Clinton has repeatedly cited Powell and other senior officials’ use of private email in an attempt to explain the controversy to voters.
Clinton’s camp issued a terse response to the ruling Friday, blasting the plaintiff as an anti-Clinton group.
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Although the D.C. -based judge denied the foundation’s request for a deposition – a win for Clinton – the order forces her to provide Judicial Watch with written answers to questions “surrounding the creation, objective and use of the
clintonemail.com server”.
