Colin Powell says Hillary Clinton's camp is trying to falsely blame him for her email scandal.

In a three-and-a-half-hour interview with the FBI provided to Congress this week, Clinton claimed Powell, Secretary of State under George W Bush, told her to use a personal email account for official business.

But speaking to Page Six Saturday, Powell said that she had been using her personal email for a year before he told her he used to do the same thing.

Colin Powell (pictured with wife Alma at Apollo in the Hamptons Saturday) says Hillary Clinton lied when she told the FBI that he advised her to use her personal email for work before she became Secretary of State

Powell says Clinton (pictured here arriving in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Sunday) had already been using her personal email account for a year when he said he did the same

WHAT DID POWELL SAY? In a three-and-a-half-hour interview with the FBI, Hillary Clinton reportedly told agents that Colin Powell had advised she use a personal email account for all unclassified work. The claim also appears in the upcoming book 'Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton' by Joe Conason, which is based on accounts by Bill and Hillary Clinton According to the book, Powell gave Hillary Clinton, then newly appointed Secretary of State, the advice at a dinner hosted by Madeleine Albright. It says he used his own email except for classified communications, and that it had been 'transformative for the department.' But Powell says that he does not recall making those remarks at the dinner. He says he sent a memo to Clinton recommending the use of personal emails after she had already been using her own email account for business for an entire year. Powell told Page Six that the Clinton camp is trying to falsely pin the blame on him for her email scandal. Advertisement

Speaking at Apollo in the Hamptons - a fundraiser for the Apollo theater - Powell said: ' 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).

'Her people have been trying to pin it on me.'

When asked why they might want to do that, Powell replied: 'Why do you think?'

He 'appeared angered' by the Clinton camp's claims, Page Six reported, but said: 'It doesn't bother me. It’s okay, I’m free.'

Clinton's claims appear in her FBI interview, according to the New York Times.

They also appear in the upcoming book 'Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton' by Joe Conason, based on accounts by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

An excerpt from the book printed in the Times recalls a dinner party Madeleine Albright hosted for Clinton near the beginning of her four-year tenure at the State Department.

'Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,' Conason says.

'Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.'

Powell is said to have told Clinton 'his use of personal email had been transformative for the department.' The conversation 'confirmed a decision she had made months earlier - to keep her personal account and use it for most messages.'

A representative for Powell told the Times the ex-cabinet official does not recall the exchange that Conason wrote about in his book, out September 13.

Clinton made the remarks in a three-and-a-half hour interview with the FBI; they are also made in a soon-to-be-published book about Bill Clinton

Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice were also at the dinner, Conason writes.

The Times received an advance copy of Conason's 'Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton.' It is based on accounts from both Bill and Hillary Clinton in the decade and a half since they relinquished the White House.

The FBI documents have not been made available to the public, despite a request from Clinton's presidential campaign that they be widely released. And Clinton has never claimed in front of cameras that Powell advised her on the matter.

Clinton's presidential campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the report in the Times.

Aides have said that they would have preferred the FBI make public the documents it provided to Congress because the campaign was concerned about leaks, like the one that came today in the Times.

Powell said Sunday that he believed Clinton's camp was trying to 'pin' the blame for her using a personal email account for work on him - though he claimed it didn't 'bother' him

Powell previously said that while he didn't remember the dinner conversation, he did send Clinton a memo on his own email use when he secretary of state, from 2001 to 2005.

The memo, which is among the FBI files distributed to Congress, explained how his use of email 'vastly improved communications within the State Department,' a statement said.

Clinton has used Powell in her public defense of her behavior - which she now says was a 'mistake' - but only as an example of a previous secretary who relied solely on private email to conduct government business.

But he did not use his own personal server to route the messages through, as Clinton did. An inspector general report that came out in May also pointed out that Powell served when the guidelines for using email were not clear.

Not only did Clinton use her own server, she kept it a secret from the government. Its existence was revealed only after she concluded her term as secretary of state.

The FBI recommended in July that Clinton not be prosecuted for her actions, even though she was 'extremely reckless' with classified information. The Justice Department subsequently declined to bring charges against the Democratic presidential candidate.