“He basically told [Clinton] that using a private email system could be a mechanism to minimize the extent to which her communications would be captured on State Department’s servers”, Moss told the Washington Free Beacon.
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But Republicans are sure to counter that Colin Powell did warn Hillary Clinton about the problems involved in using private devices and computers for official emails.
The private e-mail account used by Powell pre-dated the State Department’s own external unclassified e-mail capability. “I did the same thing on the road in hotels”.
An internal memo from FBI Director James Comey to employees leaked Wednesday said that the decision not to ask for charges against Clinton was not a close call and that “the hard part was whether to offer unprecedented transparency about our thinking”.
The Republican obsession with Secretary Clinton has reached a fever pitch, and they have been using taxpayer resources to single her out in a desperate and abusive attempt to hurt her presidential campaign.
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”.
House Democrats released an email exchange Wednesday evening detailing then-Secretary Clinton seeking advice from Powell on how he handled his emails while heading the State Department during the Bush administration.
Clinton told the FBI about the exchange during the agency’s investigation of her handling of sensitive information on her private email server. He also cautioned her from using systems that capture data or information.
In the next paragraphs, Powell described some of the security requirements set up by the Diplomatic Security Service as “nonsense”, sarcastically asking why mobile phones are any more vulnerable for wiretapping than a TV remote control.
Powell has said that his use of a private email account was different than Clinton’s use of a private emails server in her home.
He also cautioned his incoming successor to “be very careful”.
“Secretary Clinton said she did not send or receive classified materials, but she did”, South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy said.
In 2014, after the Benghazi probe’s prodding, the department went back to former secretaries and asked them to try to recover any of their emails they did on non-State.gov accounts.
Responding to a question from Clinton about restrictions on BlackBerry use, Powell wrote that he didn’t have such a device, but he did have “a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line”.
In the email exchange Powell wrote “there is a real danger”. “I got all around it all by not saying much”.
Clinton has repeatedly said the she’s followed in the footsteps of her predecessors in regards to using a private email server to handle government business.
“You will find DS driving you insane if you let them”, Powell wrote.
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He closed his email, saying about the department officials “their job is to keep you hermetically sealed up”.
