Email Shows Powell Advised Clinton on Using Private Email

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised Hillary Clinton on how to use private email during her first days as Secretary of State, according to an email 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 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.