The hits from retired General Colin Powell’s email account just keep coming.
The newly leaked trove of emails were published on DC Leaks, an anonymously run “anti-secrecy” site that is suspected of being linked to Russia. The leak contains more than two years of conversations between Powell and his former White House and State Department colleagues.
The emails show the Washington insider blasting Donald Trump for being a “national disgrace,” and haranguing Hillary Clinton for trying to pin the blame for her private, insecure email server on him. They also reveal that Washington insiders were concerned about Clinton’s health even before she declared her candidacy for president.
According to CBS News, the document batch includes emails from June of 2014 to August of 2016, and provide a revealing glimpse into the former secretary’s thoughts on the 2016 election.
In an exchange with Democratic donor Jeffrey Leeds in 2014, Powell’s striking distaste for the Clintons is revealed:
I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect. A 70-year person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not [sic] transformational, with a husband still d**king bimbos at home.
In a March 14, 2015 email to Leeds, Powell noted her declining health:
On HD tv she doesn’t look good. She is working herself to death.
Leeds, a 2008 Clinton donor, replied by sharing an observation about Clinton’s health from Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse:
Sheldon Whitehouse, who is a huge Clinton supporter, said they were both giving speeches at the same event a few months back and she could barely climb the podium steps.
In another email to Leeds on Aug. 18, 2015, Powell used salty language to describe his use of private emails for State Department business. He complained that Hillary “screws up with hubris” everything she touches:
Agree, press has started asking Peggy and me about our use. We have answered 3 IG questionaire [sic] and are clean. A newsie asked today to interview me on my use. Told them to read my book, Chapter on “Brainware.” They are going to d**k up the legitimate and necessary use of emails with friggin record rules.
I saw email more like a telephone than a cable machine. As long as the stuff is unclassified. I had some secure State.gov machine. Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris. I told you about the gig I lost at a University because she so overcharged them they came under heat and couldn’t any fees for awhile. I should send her a bill.
In another email exchange, Leeds provided confirmation that the long-rumored bad blood between the Clintons and President Obama is indeed a fact:
Hillary HATES that the President…kicked her ass in 2008.
Leeds added that the Clintons refer to Obama derisively as “that man” behind his back.
In an Aug. 21 email, Powell wrote candidly about the “intense dislike” Washingtonians have for both Clinton and Trump:
It could have been so easy for her just tell what she did, a “Full Monte.” Last night several folks came up to me to say “She threw you under the bus.” I replied ‘don’t be silly, she is under the bus.’ The FBI guys loved me and so did the IG types. But conversation turned to: “Clintons always trying to use you.” Most folks up here detest Trump and won’t vote for him, but dislike her intensely at the same time. Ah, well the country will decide.
The NYT piece yesterday on emails was fine and balanced. I worked with the reporter. I found out from her about the book coming out. No alert from State or HRC team. Same with WP reporter. He gave me info that had been leaked to them. Trump just looks stupid trying to appeal to blacks and Latinos.
In an email dated Aug. 23, 2016, Powell harangued Clinton for coming up with a “dumb” excuse (blaming him) for setting up a personal email server:
Dumb. She should have done a “Full Monty” at the beginning. She was using email when she took over. They put the personal system in the basement a few months later. The dinner was June 16th. She didn’t need any advice or ok from me; she was already doing it. I gave her written guidance on why and how I had been doing it. I warned her staff three ties over the past two years not to try to connect it to me.
I am not sure HRC even knew or understood what was going on in the basement.
He continued in that vein in an Aug. 28 email of this year:
Spent last week with Cheryl Mills and the HRC team burying the email flap. Madeleine [Albright] also says she doesn’t remember the dinner conversation or launching such a conversation. Sad thing it that HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me into it. I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hampston’s party to get their attention. She keeps tripping into these “character” minefields.
In a June email to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, he said of the Donald:
If Donald were to somehow win, by the end of the first week in office he’d be saying “What the hell did I get myself into?
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