There is an interesting twist in the Clinton email scandal. One of the most surprising elements of Hillary Clinton’s statements to the FBI was her insistence that it was former Secretary of State Colin Powell who convinced her to use a private email server. Clinton told investigators that Powell not only advised her to use a private email system but made it his one piece of advice when prompted by a third former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. Now, Powell has come out with a seemingly angry denial of the account and has said that Clinton’s “people have been trying to pin it on me.”
Clinton used this rationale with the FBI and it has apparently been raised by Clinton aides and close supporters. Author Joe Conason is viewed as a close ally of Clinton’s and wrote in his book, “Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton” recounted the dinner with former secretaries:
“Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat. Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer … [Powell] confirmed a decision she had made months earlier – to keep her personal account and use it for most messages.”
Powell has responded that he has absolutely no recollection of such a statement to Clinton and that the system in place at the State Department did not exist when he was Secretary. His office said that “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.” However, Powell recently added that “The truth is, she was using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did.”
One of the most common mistakes in Washington for high-level targets is to trip the wire under 18 U.S.C. 1001 in making false statements to federal investigators. Such contradictions can raise that concern but it is likely not a significant risk in this case. The FBI director was clearly not inclined to charge Clinton and this can be answered as simply a difference in recollection of a fact that was not critical to the underlying alleged violations. The Powell story is of more political than legal benefit for Clinton.
What do you think?
You know, I think Hillary just pulled this excuse out of her Colin. . .
bada boom.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Yeah, she made me lie at the UN too.
It’s really straining a gnat at this point, isn’t it? The only question is how much lower the Clinton’s will drag down America’s moral bar before they perish in their own exhaust.
I had a discussion some time ago which prompted me to undertake a small research project in some databases to which I subscribe. I discovered that Bilge Clinton had 15 1st and 2d degree relations who were blood-relatives, died of natural causes, and were born prior to 1946. Five of the 15 lived to see their 70th birthday (of whom two died within a year thereafter). The longevity champion among the women was a paternal side aunt who lived to be 82 (and may have been the only one whose life-span was longer than the median for her birth cohort). The longevity champion among the men was BC’s brother, Leon Ritzenthaler. In less than a year, BC will reach a point where his lifespan exceeds Leon Ritzenthaler’s. His mother, Virginia Kelley, also died at age 70.
If you’ve seen recent pictures of BC, you’ll note that he looks fairly aged compared to his contemporaries (Albert Gore, Jr, Dan Quayle, Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, George W Bush, Newt Gingrich, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Wesley Clark; leaving out a comparison with Jesse Jackson (black), Richard Cheney (bald), Bernie Sanders (bald)). He looks like a contemporary of Gary Hart (10 years his senior) and looks not much younger than Richard Gephardt, John McCain, and Ron Paul (respectively 5, 10, and 12 years his senior). He looks older than Michael Dukakis, who is 13 years his senior. Walter Mondale, 18 years his senior, looks perhaps five years older. Dennis Hastert, with recent weight loss and a prison term due, looks worse than BC, as does acne-scarred Steve Forbes, as does Bill Bradley (suffering old age weight gain and hair loss).
Pretty morbid, I know. Bilge Clinton’s mother was perfectly healthy until about 20 months before she died and still able to travel a week before she died. Hilligula and others may be in for a disagreeable surprise.
Think of the bar so high that a subsurface worm could easily pass over it
Chapter 1 – I didn’t do it.
Chapter 2 – I might have done it.
Chapter 3 – I did it, but there was nothing wrong with what I did.
Chapter 4 – He made me do it.
Chapter 5 –
Chapter 6 –
Chapter 7 –
Much ado about very little.
David B. Benson – Hillary has never taken ownership of any mistake she has made. The fact that she is trying to through Colin Powell under the bus is just one more example. He has been her goto excuse from the beginning, but finally he rejected her.
Hillary has never taken ownership of any mistake she has made.
I know the type. Vigorous word salads followed by emotional displays. A variant is the sort who apologize compulsively. A history teacher I once had stopped the class one day and looked over at one of our number highlighting passages in the text as he spoke, “Oliver, you’re highlighting too much. If you underline everything, you’ve underlined nothing.”
Is Colin Powell a Republican?
BLM Dog – Colin Powell is as much a Republican as John McCain is.
14,000+ deleted Clinton e-mails about to be added to the mix by the FBI (see wikileaks)
Colin Powell sure does give bad advice!
This is cute. This fellow (a ‘writer’, who lives outside of Reno, livliehood uncertain) travels to Honduras with his family and discovers that a country with a per capita income 7% of that of the United States is kinda shabby and that Latin American countries who do not emphasize institutional development (as was done only in Chile) tend to be crime-ridden.
Armed with his MFA from the dregs of Antioch College, what’s his diagnosis of Honduras problem? Why is there so little production there compared to, say, Panama, and why so much disorder? His answer: “libertarian bu******”. The things you learn in MFA programs.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/honduras-sold-libertarian-paradise-i-went-and-discovered-capitalist-nightmare
@Jill
Thanks my friend for staying on Honduras. that situation hits home personally – my good friend from high school moved back to Honduras with her family and became an activist speaking out against the corporations who are destroying the country for profit and leaving even more people worse off. She has been disappeared – we have not heard from her or about her in two years!!
HRC supported the overthrow of Zelaya to support her corporate buddies who are raping that country.
Which corporations?
What do you fancy they’re doing?
[testing]
Spam filter
Powell, Powell bo bile…
Banana fanna fo file..
fee fi mo malli
Powelley!
If the first two letters are ever the same..
Ya drop them both and say the name like Bob fob iffin f so rob
Or Mary Mary, is contrary…
The Name Game!