--- title: Hillary Clinton Emails: Colin Powell Offered Advice description: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised Hillary Clinton on how to use private email during her first days in the position canonical: https://time.com/4483616/clinton-emails-colin-powell/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-08T12:27:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:27:56.339Z article:section: Politics og:title: Hillary Clinton Emails: Colin Powell Offered Advice og:description: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised Hillary Clinton on how to use private email during her first days in the position og:url: https://time.com/4483616/clinton-emails-colin-powell/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4195830470a63d0e/6988a5378e06012b1f4675f9/colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-scandal.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-scandal og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hillary Clinton Emails: Colin Powell Offered Advice twitter:description: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised Hillary Clinton on how to use private email during her first days in the position twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4195830470a63d0e/6988a5378e06012b1f4675f9/colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-scandal.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Email Shows Powell Advised Clinton on Using Private Email  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Sep 8, 2016 12:27 PM UTC  Former U.S. Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton listen to remarks at a groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Diplomacy Center at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 3, 2014. Former U.S. Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton listen to remarks at a groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Diplomacy Center at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 3, 2014.Jonathan Ernst—Reuters  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Sep 8, 2016 12:27 PM UTC Former Secretary of State Colin Powell [advised Hillary Clinton](http://time.com/4458847/hillary-clinton-fbi-colin-powell-email/) on how to use [private email](http://time.com/4478123/read-hillary-clintons-fbi-documents-email-server-investigation/) during her first days as Secretary of State, according to an [email](https://medium.com/oversightdems/cummings-releases-full-powell-email-advising-clinton-on-personal-email-use-65904c1ccfa#.191r7zxve) released by a Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee. The email, dated two days after Clinton took office in 2009, suggests how Clinton could use a personal device while avoiding her messages being archived as part of the federal record. “There is a real danger. If it is public that you have a Blackberry and it it (sic) government and you are using, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law,” Powell wrote. “I got all around it all by not saying much.” Powell has publicly resisted talking about Clinton’s emails in recent months [saying](http://www.people.com/article/colin-powell-hillary-clinton-pinning-email-scandal-on-him) her use of a private server “doesn’t bother me.” The emails were released via Medium by Elijah E. Cummings, the senior Democratic member on the House Oversight Committee. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4483616/clinton-emails-colin-powell/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4483616/clinton-emails-colin-powell/"},"headline":"Email Shows Powell Advised Clinton on Using Private Email","datePublished":"2016-09-08T12:27:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:27:56.339Z","description":"'I got all around it all by not saying much'","url":"https://time.com/4483616/clinton-emails-colin-powell/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4195830470a63d0e/6988a5378e06012b1f4675f9/colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-scandal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Justin Worland","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/justin-worland/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4195830470a63d0e/6988a5378e06012b1f4675f9/colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-scandal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-scandal","caption":"Former U.S. Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton listen to remarks at a groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Diplomacy Center at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 3, 2014.","creditText":"Jonathan Ernst—Reuters","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":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4483616/clinton-emails-colin-powell/","name":"Email Shows Powell Advised Clinton on Using Private Email"}}]}] ```