--- title: Hillary Clinton: Colin Powell Told Her To Use Private Email description: Hillary Clinton told FBI investigators that former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised her to use a personal email account. canonical: https://time.com/4458847/hillary-clinton-fbi-colin-powell-email/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-19T12:17:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:42:04.908Z article:section: Politics og:title: Hillary Clinton: Colin Powell Told Her To Use Private Email og:description: Hillary Clinton told FBI investigators that former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised her to use a personal email account. og:url: https://time.com/4458847/hillary-clinton-fbi-colin-powell-email/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltccbd7b50292765ae/6988a280fb4eac1c0188ec0d/gettyimages-589997744.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 6941 og:image:height: 3904 og:image:alt: Democratic Nominee for President of the United States former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hillary Clinton: Colin Powell Told Her To Use Private Email twitter:description: Hillary Clinton told FBI investigators that former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised her to use a personal email account. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltccbd7b50292765ae/6988a280fb4eac1c0188ec0d/gettyimages-589997744.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Report: Hillary Clinton Said Colin Powell Advised Her to Use Private Email Account > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Watch Hillary Clinton Benghazi Hearing In Under 3 Minutes [Watch (HLS stream): Watch Hillary Clinton Benghazi Hearing In Under 3 Minutes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qmnkxqcZ.m3u8) (2:44)  _Published 2015-10-22. Watch Hillary Clinton Benghazi Hearing Highlights in 2 Minutes_  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Aug 19, 2016 12:17 PM UTC  Democratic Nominee for President of the United States former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rallies with longtime friend and colleague Vice President Joe Biden in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Monday August 15, 2016. Democratic Nominee for President of the United States former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rallies with longtime friend and colleague Vice President Joe Biden in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Monday August 15, 2016. The Washington Post—Getty Images  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Aug 19, 2016 12:17 PM UTC Hillary Clinton told FBI investigators that former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised her to use a personal email account, according to a new report. The claim was included in notes given to Congress by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday, [The New York _Times_ reports](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/us/politics/hillary-clinton-told-fbi-colin-powell-advised-her-to-use-private-email.html?%5Fr=0). Powell confirmed he did write Clinton an email talking about how his use of a personal email account “vastly improved communications within the State Department.” Clinton’s use of a private server to handle email has come under fierce scrutiny for potentially mishandling classified information. In July, after a lengthy investigation, [FBI director James Comey said](http://time.com/4393372/james-comey-fbi-hillary-clinton-email-speech-transcript/?iid=sr-link6) they found more than 100 emails that contained classified information at the time they were sent or received. While Comey [declined to recommend criminal charges against Clinton](http://time.com/4394178/hillary-clinton-email-fbi-investigation/?iid=sr-link1), he said the FBI found her and her colleagues to be “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” A book by left-leaning author Joe Conason on Bill Clinton’s post-presidency includes a claim that Powell had given similar advice to Clinton at a dinner party early in her tenure, hosted by another former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. “Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,” Conason writes according to the _Times_, which obtained an advanced copy of the book. “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.” Powell, who served as Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005, released a statement Thursday saying he did not recall this conversation. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4458847/hillary-clinton-fbi-colin-powell-email/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4458847/hillary-clinton-fbi-colin-powell-email/"},"headline":"Report: Hillary Clinton Said Colin Powell Advised Her to Use Private Email Account","datePublished":"2016-08-19T12:17:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:42:04.908Z","description":"Powell said his use of a private email account \"vastly improved communications\" at Foggy Bottom","url":"https://time.com/4458847/hillary-clinton-fbi-colin-powell-email/","keywords":["Hillary Clinton","2016 Election"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltccbd7b50292765ae/6988a280fb4eac1c0188ec0d/gettyimages-589997744.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltccbd7b50292765ae/6988a280fb4eac1c0188ec0d/gettyimages-589997744.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Democratic Nominee for President of the United States former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton","caption":"Democratic Nominee for President of the United States former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton","creditText":"The Washington Post—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4458847/hillary-clinton-fbi-colin-powell-email/","name":"Report: Hillary Clinton Said Colin Powell Advised Her to Use Private Email Account"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Watch Hillary Clinton Benghazi Hearing In Under 3 Minutes","description":"Watch Hillary Clinton Benghazi Hearing Highlights in 2 Minutes","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/qmnkxqcZ/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-10-22T18:25:53.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qmnkxqcZ.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4458847/hillary-clinton-fbi-colin-powell-email/","duration":"PT2M44S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4458847/hillary-clinton-fbi-colin-powell-email/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```