On Friday, the New York Times reported that Hillary Clinton told FBI investigators that former secretary of state Colin L. Powell had advised her to use a personal email account — which was true, but hardly exculpatory, as I noted.
On Saturday, People magazine caught up with Powell and asked him about the report:
“Her people have been trying to pin it on me,” Powell, 79, told PEOPLE Saturday night at the Apollo in the Hamptons 2016 Night of Legends fête in East Hampton, New York.
“The truth is, she was using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did,” Powell added.
Why does the former diplomat believe this to be the case?
“Why do you think?” he said.
Some advice to the Clinton campaign: If you aim to throw someone under the bus, make sure they’ll lie down for it.
Moreover, Powell didn’t use his private email to hide meetings with foreign royals arranged through his personal nonprofit:
Previously undisclosed emails indicate the Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain sought an audience with Hillary Clinton in 2009 through his connections to the Clinton Foundation after he was denied access through the “normal channels.”
The emails, made public Monday in a batch of records obtained by conservative-leaning Judicial Watch, show longtime aide Huma Abedin coordinated with Doug Band, then an employee of the Clinton Foundation, to secure a meeting with Salman and Clinton in June 2009.
Band stressed that Salman was a “good friend of ours.” The Kingdom of Bahrain has given up to $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. [Washington Examiner]
That revelation comes courtesy of almost 15,000 emails that Clinton failed to turn over to the government after leaving office. Clinton, of course, promised that she’d turned over all work-related emails.
Was this Colin Powell’s fault, too?