A newly leaked trove of emails by Colin Powell on Wednesday offered a rare glimpse into how the former US secretary of state actually view US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his Democratic counterpart Hillary Clinton.
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As for Clinton, Powell said in another email that the Democratic former secretary of state was “greedy” and had “unbridled ambition”.
Powell’s emails were posted to DCleaks, a website known to share hacked documents associated with high-profile figures, and first reported by BuzzFeed and The Intercept. A member of Powell’s staff told CBS News they had “no idea who did it and no further comment at this time”. In the email, Powell said Trump “is in the process of destroying himself, no need for the Dems to attack him”, BuzzFeed reported.
In the emails from the past few months and going back to a year ago, Powell called GOP nominee Donald Trump a “national disgrace”, an “international pariah” with “no sense of shame”, who is leading a “racist” movement – because of Trump’s leading the “birther” movement and having questioned President Obama’s religion. The remark was made in response to the real estate tycoon turned politician’s once-incessant claim that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
“That’s what the 99% believe”, Powell wrote.
In the emails, Powell said he stayed relatively quiet during the rise of Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.
“Everything [Clinton] touches she kind of screws up with hubris”, he wrote in August 2015. “To go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him”, Powell said.
Powell also bemoaned that Clinton overcharged a university that asked her to speak there, which forced them to cancel plans to have him as well.
Mrs Clinton has pointed to Mr Powell’s use of his personal AOL account at the state department as an example of why her email use was common practice.
“He is at 1% black voters and will drop”, Powell wrote, citing the birther campaign Trump ran as a major reason.
According to a spokesman, Powell is aware his personal email account was hacked and has not disputed the authenticity of the contents. “Hillary’s mafia keeps trying to suck me into it”.
Former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell has always been one of the high priests of the Washington establishment, staying quiet in this year’s raucous presidential campaign while tending to his reputation as a thoughtful ex-general and diplomat.
Leaked emails from Powell also reveal he noticed a decline in Clinton’s health, saying, “She doesn’t look good”.
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“I think we should stick with one President at a time”, Clinton said.
