Former Secretary of State Colin Powell

Emails leaked by a hacker reveal that former Secretary of State Colin Powell considers Donald Trump “A national disgrace and international pariah,” and that he and his successor, Condoleezza Rice, agreed the years of investigation into the Benghazi attack in 2012 were “a stupid witch hunt.”

The emails are thought to have come from DCLeaks.com, which some computer specialists believe is connected to Russian intelligence services.

“Powell allegedly made the remarks about Trump in a June 17, 2016, email to Emily Miller, a journalist who once worked under Powell as a deputy press secretary at the State Department,” according to Buzzfeed.

In the email Powell said Trump, "is in the process of destroying himself, no need for the Dems to attack him."

Later in August Powell wrote another email about the birther movement, in which Trump questioned whether President Barack Obama had been born in the the United States.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote to (the) journalist and former aide.... "That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

Liz Birge is an associate professor of journalism at William Paterson University in New Jersey. She is spending her fall 2016 sabbatical writing for Daily Kos.