Colin Powell told Hillary Clinton how to use private servers to 'do business' without 'going through State Department servers,' newly released emails have revealed.

Last month Powell claimed that Clinton had been Secretary of State for a year before he told her how he used his personal email accounts while in the same position.

But emails released Wednesday by Congressional Democrats show her inquiring about restrictions on her BlackBerry on January 23, 2009, two days after beginning as Secretary of State - and Powell replying.

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Advice: Newly released correspondence from the State Department show Colin Powell gave a detailed guide to Hillary Clinton on how he bypassed oversight when sending emails

Addict: Clinton, famously a BlackBerry addict, asked Powell for advice on how she could use her device while at work on January 23, 2009 - two days after she became Secretary of State

In her email, Clinton writes: 'What were the restrictions on your use of your Blackberry? Did you use it in your personal office?

'I've been told that the DSS personnel knew you had one and used it but no one fesses up to knowing how you used it!'

Although Powell's reply is not dated in the exchange, a reference by him to 'new rules' about BlackBerries would appear to date it around January 23, when newly installed President Obama negotiated the usage of his own BlackBerry.

The email details Powell's methods for bypassing State Department controls.

He says that he used a personal computer hooked up to a phone line 'So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers.

Business: Seemingly around the same time Clinton sent her email, Powell replied, saying he used his private email 'to do business with some foreign leaders'

'I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels.'

As for BlackBerries - or PDAs, as Powell refers to them - he says the NSA and CIA repeatedly hassled him about not using them.

However, he also says that they could never provide a compelling explanation for why or how they could be used to spy on information.

'So, we just went about our business and stopped asking,' he said. 'I had an ancient version of a PDA and used it.'

Powell also warns Clinton there is a 'real danger' that using a government BlackBerry would lead to exchanges becoming 'an official record and subject to the law.'

'Reading about the President's BB rules this morning, it sounds like it won't be as useful as it used to be,' he said. 'Be very careful.

'I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.'

The 'new rules' that Powell refers to may be the ones reported by The New York Times on January 22, 2009 - putting the exchange firmly at the start of Clinton's tenure.

This would appear to undermine Powell's claims last month that he only told Hillary Clinton about his personal servers a year after she had already been using them.

'The truth is she was using (her personal email) for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did (during my term),' Powell told Page Six on August 21.

'Her people have been trying to pin it on me,' he said, referring to the criticism she has faced for allegedly using personal email servers for work use.

Pinned: Last month Powell said Clinton's team were trying to 'pin' blame for Clinton's use of private email servers on him, and that he only told her a year after she was already using them

The email exchange was only released by the State Department after pressure from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, CNN reported.

They complained that the exchange was not included in previous releases by the department after demands for their release by Republicans in Congress, who are scrutinizing Clinton's use of private email at work.

Representative Elijah Cummings, who leads Democrats on the Oversight Committee, said the exchange 'shows that Secretary Powell advised Secretary Clinton with a detailed blueprint on how to skirt security rules and bypass requirements to preserve federal records, although Secretary Clinton has made clear that she did not rely on this advice.'

Contradiction: But the emails released Wednesday suggest that Powell did in fact explain how he bypassed state oversight in the earliest days of Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State

Powell declined to comment to CNN, but his spokesman had previously told the channel that he had written a memo about his AOL account being used for 'unclassified messages.'

He said the memo enthused about 'how it vastly improved communications within the State Department.'

'At the time there was no equivalent system within the department,' the spokesperson added. 'He used a secure State computer on his desk to manage classified information.'

However, the remarks about hotels and PDAs in the email exchange would appear to contradict that last remark.