Hillary Clinton: Colin Powell Told Me to Do It

So, mere hours after telling the audience at a campaign rally that she’s not the kind of person who makes excuses, evidence was unveiled that Hillary Clinton threw former Secretary of State Colin Powell under the bus.

Big time.

According to the New York Times, FBI notes from Clinton’s three-and-a-half-hour interview with agents last month indicate she said Powell encouraged her to use her now-infamous private email server. Those notes, found in what is called a Form 302 by the FBI, are classified Top Secret, but the Times was alerted to the details by an anonymous source “with knowledge of its contents.”

The Times report also contains an excerpt from a soon-to-be released book about President Bill Clinton’s life after the White House. In it, the author describes a dinner meeting in which several former secretaries of state were present and offered their advice to Hillary Clinton.

According to that excerpt, Powell suggested Clinton use private email for non-classified communications. Powell, however, says he doesn’t remember the dinner conversation, but he does remember a brief email exchange with Clinton regarding his use of private email.

The Times reported:

In his memoir, “It Worked for Me,” Mr. Powell writes about his personal email, and he has taken pride in having tried to advance the antiquated technology practices at the State Department. But his use of personal email and Mrs. Clinton’s aren’t entirely parallel. Mr. Powell did not have a server at his house or rely on outside contractors, as Mrs. Clinton did at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

A State Department inspector general report released in May said that Mr. Powell and other senior officials had used personal email accounts for official business, but that by the time Mrs. Clinton took office the rules were clear that using a private server in such a manner was neither allowed nor encouraged because of “significant security risks.”

In Mrs. Clinton’s case, the practice has created particular controversy because of her family’s foundation and its donors who had varying political and business interests while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. On Thursday, the Clinton Foundation confirmed that it would no longer accept foreign or corporate funds should Mrs. Clinton win in November.

Although he did not recommend criminal charges, Mr. Comey said in July that Mrs. Clinton’s exclusive reliance on a private email address and server had been “extremely careless.”