September 3, 2016
GOTTA BE MORE CAREFUL THAN THAT, HONEY:
Colin Powell Warned Hillary Clinton to Be 'Very Careful' About Using Personal Email for Business (LIZ KREUTZ Sep 2, 2016, ABC News)
The FBI notes state that Clinton contacted Powell on January 23, 2009 via email to ask about his use of a BlackBerry while he was secretary of state. Powell, according to the FBI notes, replied by warning Clinton that "if it became 'public' that Clinton had a Blackberry and she used it to 'do business,' her e-mails could become 'official record[s] and subject to the law.'""Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that capture the data," Powell advised.
You'd think that, given what we published about her husband, she'd have known better than to even pretend she could have privacy.
MORE:
Colin Powell's foundation and Hillary Clinton's are treated very differently by the media (Matthew Yglesias, August 30, 2016, Vox)
In 1997, after a distinguished career in military service that culminated with stints as national security adviser under Ronald Reagan and chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Colin Powell launched a charity. Named America's Promise, it's built around the theme of Five Promises to America's children. And while I've never heard it praised as a particularly cost-effective way to help humanity by effective altruists, it was surely a reasonably good cause for a famous and politically popular man to dedicate himself to.Needless to say, however, Powell continued to be involved in American political life. His sky-high poll numbers ensured he'd be buzzed about as a possible presidential or vice presidential nominee, either as a moderate Republican or as an independent. Realistically, that wasn't in the cards, and Powell was smart enough to know it. But his support for George W. Bush during the 2000 campaign lent him valuable credibility, and his recruitment to serve as Bush's first secretary of state was considered an important political and substantive coup by Bush.So what about the charity? Well, Powell's wife, Alma Powell, took it over. And it kept raking in donations from corporate America. Ken Lay, the chair of Enron, was a big donor. He also backed a literacy-related charity that was founded by the then-president's mother. The US Department of State, at the time Powell was secretary, went to bat for Enron in a dispute the company was having with the Indian government.Did Lay or any other Enron official attempt to use their connections with Alma Powell (or Barbara Bush, for that matter) to help secure access to State Department personnel in order to voice these concerns? Did any other donors to America's Promise? I have no idea, because to the best of my knowledge nobody in the media ever launched an extensive investigation into these matters. That's the value of the presumption of innocence, something Hillary Clinton has never been able to enjoy during her time in the national spotlight.
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 3, 2016 9:00 AM