Colin Powell relied on personal emails while secretary of state

Like Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State Colin Powell also used a personal email account during his tenure at the State Department, an aide confirmed in a statement.

“He was not aware of any restrictions nor does he recall being made aware of any over the four years he served at State,” the statement says. “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.”


Powell’s statement comes after The New York Times reported that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a personal account while at the State Department, and the department acknowledged that thousands of emails Clinton generated during her tenure were not archived as official government records. The Times story also mentioned that Powell “used personal email to communicate with American officials and ambassadors and foreign leaders.”

The statement continues: “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.”

“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.”

Clinton allies have maintained that the presumed Democratic presidential front-runner’s use of a personal email account was not out of step with how former secretaries used email to conduct work related to the State Department.

“Like Secretaries of State before her, she used her own email account when engaging with any Department officials,” said Nick Merrill, spokesman for Clinton, in a statement.

“For government business, she emailed them on their Department accounts, with every expectation they would be retained. When the Department asked former Secretaries last year for help ensuring their emails were in fact retained, we immediately said yes.”