Former secretary of state Colin Powell told Hillary Clinton in 2009 that he used a personal computer attached to a private phone line to do business with foreign leaders and State Department officials and was generally scornful of the notion that his mobile devices might be accessed by spies, according to an email exchange released by U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) on Wednesday. “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 going through the State Department servers”.
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“I even used it to do business with some foreign leader and some of the senior foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts”, he wrote. Clinton then spent half of her allotted time in the spotlight defending her use of a private e-mail server during her tenure at the State Department.
The exchange shows that Powell gave Clinton “a detailed blueprint on how to skirt security rules and bypass requirements to preserve federal records, although Secretary Clinton has made clear that she did not rely on this advice”, said Cummings. “The truth is, she was using” a private e-mail server “for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did”.
While Clinton told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Powell’s advice to her did not influence her decision to use a personal email system at the State Department, she has made comments recently which call that claim into question. “I did the same thing on the road in hotels”. (At least we think this was sent while she was in office, or else very shortly before taking office.) In it, Powell basically cops to violation of both government policy and perhaps the same law regarding the handling of confidential information that we know Hillary has violated.
In an email response to a note Clinton sent dated January 23, 2009, Powell described his office setup, which included both a “personal computer” and a device he described as a “PDA” – likely short for “Personal Digital Assistant”.
In the e-mail, Powell also gave Clinton unsolicited advice about diplomatic security agents, warning her that she’d find them “driving you insane if you let them”.
Clinton wrote to Powell about his own email practices, after President Obama’s successful effort to keep his BlackBerry as president. But, he added, he avoided these headaches by “not saying much and not using systems that captured the data”.
Powell went on to criticize the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s rules regarding the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs), which are similar to BlackBerries.
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In addition to advising Clinton about government communications, Powell gave his assessment about the security protocols, not just for email, but for movements. He also revealed “on weekends, I drove my beloved cars around town without them following me”, which he said they “hated” and made him sign a letter “relieving them of responsibility if I got whacked while doing that. Its turned out to be anything but”, she said during that interview.
