When everything fails, blame someone else. This is exactly what Hillary Clinton did when the FBI began investigating her private e-mail server that was poorly secured and leaked classified information. Who did she blame it on? Colin Powell. She stated that since he recommended using a private e-mail server, she followed his advice.
However, this week former Secretary of State Colin Powell publicly stated that the Clinton campaign has been trying to pin the e-mail controversy on him since the FBI investigation began. According to the New York Times, Mr. Powell recommended Clinton use a personal e-mail server at a dinner hosted by Madeleine Albright. The dinner occurred after she started using her private e-mail server.
“Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,” Mr. Conason writes. “Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”
Mr. Conason continued, “Saying that his use of personal email had been transformative for the department,” Mr. Powell “thus confirmed a decision she had made months earlier — to keep her personal account and use it for most messages.”
Mrs. Clinton and her campaign have repeatedly pointed to the use of personal email by Mr. Powell and other government officials to try to explain the email controversy to voters, but Mrs. Clinton has not said publicly that Mr. Powell personally recommended that she rely on a private account.
Mr. Powell’s office released a statement on Thursday night saying he had no recollection of the dinner conversation. He did write Mrs. Clinton an email memo, which may exist in the F.B.I. files, describing his use of his personal email account for unclassified messages “and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department,” the statement said.
This latest claim to throw Mr. Powell under the bus is another attempt to distract voters from the scandals surrounding her time as Secretary of State, the personal unsecured e-mail server as well as the alleged impropriety of the Clinton Foundation.
Editorial Cartoon courtesy of Robert L. Lang
When everything fails, blame someone else. This is exactly what Hillary Clinton did when the FBI began investigating her private e-mail server that was poorly secured and leaked classified information. Who did she blame it on? Colin Powell. She stated that since he recommended using a private e-mail server, she followed his advice.
However, this week former Secretary of State Colin Powell publicly stated that the Clinton campaign has been trying to pin the e-mail controversy on him since the FBI investigation began. According to the New York Times, Mr. Powell recommended Clinton use a personal e-mail server at a dinner hosted by Madeleine Albright. The dinner occurred after she started using her private e-mail server.
“Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,” Mr. Conason writes. “Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”
Mr. Conason continued, “Saying that his use of personal email had been transformative for the department,” Mr. Powell “thus confirmed a decision she had made months earlier — to keep her personal account and use it for most messages.”
Mrs. Clinton and her campaign have repeatedly pointed to the use of personal email by Mr. Powell and other government officials to try to explain the email controversy to voters, but Mrs. Clinton has not said publicly that Mr. Powell personally recommended that she rely on a private account.
Mr. Powell’s office released a statement on Thursday night saying he had no recollection of the dinner conversation. He did write Mrs. Clinton an email memo, which may exist in the F.B.I. files, describing his use of his personal email account for unclassified messages “and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department,” the statement said.
This latest claim to throw Mr. Powell under the bus is another attempt to distract voters from the scandals surrounding her time as Secretary of State, the personal unsecured e-mail server as well as the alleged impropriety of the Clinton Foundation.
Editorial Cartoon courtesy of Robert L. Lang
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