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Leaked Colin Powell Emails Blast Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton
| Wall Street Journal | - |
WASHINGTON—A
trove of hacked emails on a website with suspected ties to Russian
intelligence services show former Secretary of State Colin Powell
harshly castigating Donald Trump, while criticizing Hillary Clinton's
handling of her email controversy.
Leaked Colin Powell Emails Blast Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton
The emails posted on a website allegedly linked to Russian hackers
ENLARGE
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell speaking at the State Department in Washington in 2014.
Photo:
Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press
The emails stolen from Mr. Powell were posted on DCLeaks on Tuesday evening. BuzzFeed News first reported them.
In one, Mr. Powell said he remained on the sidelines while Mr. Trump marched toward the Republican presidential nomination because “to go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him.”
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The retired four-star general said in an email that a Republican-led congressional investigation into the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, was a “witch hunt.” Mr. Powell also described a “tantrum” he threw at a party over Mrs. Clinton’s attempts to justify her use of a private email server by citing his email practices.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Powell, who served as secretary of state under President George W. Bush, confirmed the emails were authentic, but declined to comment further. The hacked messages reveal candid correspondence between Mr. Powell and his friends and acquaintances from the summer of 2014 through August 2016.
U.S. officials suspect DCLeaks website is tied to the Russian government. Russian-linked hackers also have been accused of breaching computer systems belonging to the Democratic Party, and have been posting its internal documents. A hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0 released more internal Democratic Party documents on Tuesday.
The new batch of emails also show Mr. Powell expressing frustration over Mrs. Clinton’s attempts to invoke him as part of her defense over her use of a private email server. Correspondence between them released last week by the House of Representatives showed Mr. Powell in 2009 describing to her the ways he used a private system out of concern about public records laws. Mrs. Clinton’s team has repeatedly pointed to that fact in defense of her email practices.
Mrs. Clinton “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 Hampton’s party to get their attention,” Mr. Powell wrote in one leaked email.
In another, Mr. Powell said that Mr. Trump was responsible for a “racist” effort to show that President Barack Obama wasn't born in the U.S. Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father, but a popular conspiracy theory stoked by Mr. Trump asserted he was born abroad, rendering him ineligible for the presidency.
Mr. Trump “can never overcome what he tried to do to Obama with his search for the birth certificate...the whole birther movement was racist,” Mr. Powell wrote.
A spokesperson for Mr. Trump didn't respond to a request for comment. The Clinton campaign also didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Write to Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com
