Colin Powell also used a personal email account during his tenure as secretary of state, as questions remain whether Hillary Clinton broke the rules when she conducted State Department business using a personal email account.
“He was not aware of any restrictions nor does he recall being made aware of any over the four years he served at State,” an aide for Mr. Powell said in a statement, Politico reported.
“He sent emails to his staff generally via their State Department email addresses. These emails should be on the State Department computers. He might have occasionally used personal email addresses, as he did when emailing to family and friends,” the statement said.
Mr. Powell’s statement comes after The New York Times reported that Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department, possibly violating regulations set forth by the National Archives in 2009. The Times reported that before the regulations went into effect, Mr. Powell also “used personal email to communicate with American officials and ambassadors and foreign leaders.”
Mr. Powell’s statement continued: “He did not take any hard copies of emails with him when he left office and has no record of the emails. They were all unclassified and mostly of a housekeeping nature. He came into office encouraging the use of emails as a way of getting the staff to embrace the new 21st information world,” Politico reported.
“The account he used has been closed for a number of years. In light of new policies published in 2013 and 2014 and a December 2014 letter from the State Department advising us of these polices, we will be working with the department to see if any additional action is required on our part,” the statement said.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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