WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (UPI) — Hillary Clinton told the FBI that former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised her to use a private email account for unclassified communications at the State Department.
According to interview notes taken by FBI investigators, Clinton said Powell made the recommendation twice: once at a dinner party on Clinton’s behalf hosted by Madeline Albright, and in a follow-up email exchange shortly after Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state.
Powell, through a spokesman, said he had no recollection of the dinner party conversation, but added he did use a private AOL email account for unclassified communication with other State Department employees because no such system was in place in 2001 when he came on the job.
A non-classified email system was put in place by the time Clinton took office in 2009.
NBC News and The New York Times reported the FBI does have record of the email exchange in its catalogue of Clinton’s emails. The precise nature of Powell’s advice was not clear.
Powell, who is believed to be the first secretary of state to use email, said he never used the AOL account to handle classified information. Those emails were sent and received solely on a secure desktop computer in his office.
“Gen. Powell has no recollection of the dinner conversation. 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. At the time there was no equivalent system within the Department. He used a secure State computer on his desk to manage classified information.”
FBI Director James Comey said Clinton’s use of a private email server was “extremely careless” but did not rise to the level of criminal charges.
