As the NYT first reported on Friday, in the latest attempt to justify her use of a private email server, the FBI notes from Hillary Clinton’s deposition revealed that she told federal investigators that former Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested she use a personal email account as he had done.
We promptly noted a key inconsistency with this story: “where the attempt to deflect blame from Hillary and toward Powell fails is the following “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,” 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.”
In an immediate response, Colin Powell’s office in a statement said he could not recall the dinner conversation. He did recall describing the system he used to her, but the statement did not say he suggested Clinton do the same. “He did write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department,” the statement said. “At the time there was no equivalent system within the department.”
