Oops!  Colin Powell’s Gmail account has been hacked by the operative(s) known as Guccifer 2, widely believed to be linked to Russian intelligence, and the results given to the site DC Leaks.  Rather than publishing the complete files, DC Leaks is sharing them with selected publications.  (Odd, it seems to me.)

Nonetheless, the emails shared with The Intercept show that Powell regarded his successor as secretary of state with a certain amount of contempt.

“Sad thing,” Powell wrote to one confidant, “HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me to 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. She keeps tripping into these ‘character’ minefields,” Powell lamented. He noted that he had tried to settle the matter by meeting with Clinton aide Cheryl Mills in August.  


Powell lamented Hillary’s potential to “dick up” matters:

The Clinton campaign’s effort to blur the lines between Clinton’s private email server and Powell’s AOL account left Powell deeply frustrated. 

“They are going to dick up the legitimate and necessary use of emails with friggin record rules. I saw email more like a telephone than a cable machine,” Powell wrote last year to his business partner Jeffrey Leeds. “As long as the stuff is unclassified. I had a secure State.gov machine.

And then Powell provides what could become an epitaph for the Clinton campaign:

Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.

Hat tip: Mark J. Fitzgibbons