LEAKED emails from former US Secretary of State Colin Powell reveal what he really thinks of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Dick Cheney who he calls an “idiot”.

First reported by BuzzFeed News, the emails reveal Hillary Clinton’s reaction to losing the 2008 presidential nomination to Barack Obama.

In one email, posted on Twitter by Intercept journalist Lee Fang, private equity investor and Democrat donor Jeffrey Leeds told Powell that all Clinton wants is to win the upcoming election.

“It’s the one prize she wants. She has everything else. And she HATES the President (‘that man’ as the Clintons call him) kicked her a** in 2008. She can’t believe it or accept it,” Leeds wrote in March 2015, referring to Obama.

Colin Powell & mega Dem donor Jeffrey Leeds chat about how much the Clintons hate Obama (via newly leaked emails) pic.twitter.com/6dEbD4AU3r — Lee Fang (@lhfang) September 13, 2016

Also back in 2015, Leeds & Powell discussed Hillary's health pic.twitter.com/dm4G1WJvus — Lee Fang (@lhfang) September 14, 2016

Powell also told Leeds in a July 2014 email that he did not want to vote for Hillary in the 2016 election, seemingly citing Bill as a factor.

“I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect,” he wrote.

“A 70-year person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still di**ing bimbos at home (according to the NYP).”

Powell, a retired general who served under three Republican presidents, told BuzzFeed that he does not deny the emails’ authenticity.

In a subsequent statement to NBC News, Powell said “the hackers have a lot more” of his emails.

We all want to hang out with Colin Powell when he updates his Burn Book pic.twitter.com/LhxW7ycppg — Bridget Johnson (@Bridget_PJM) September 15, 2016

In the newly leaked emails, Powell also criticised Clinton aides for tying him into the controversy over the Democratic nominee’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State.

Powell has acknowledged using a commercial email address for some official business. Clinton avoided using the State Department’s email completely, using a private email server.

In an email reported by NBC, Powell wrote that he had told Clinton’s “minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try.”

In another spot, he declared of Clinton that: “Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.”

media_camera Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at a rally in Orlando, Florida in October 2008. Picture: Supplied

Among Powell’s emails, however, are comments that reflect that he too sought to use private email as a way to avoid creating documents retained by the government.

Decrying “friggin record rules,” Powell wrote that he “saw email more like a telephone than a cable machine,” in one email cited by The Intercept. “As long as the stuff is unclassified.” Congressional Democrats have seized on the use of a private email addresses by Powell and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a foil for Republican attacks on Clinton.

By suggesting that he didn’t view work conducted via private email as a permanent government record, Powell could offer those Democrats additional ammunition.

media_camera Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is a retired four-star general who served under three Republican presidents. Picture: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

In the emails, Powell also said why he stayed relatively quiet during the Republican presidential nominee’s rise.

To a former aide he writes: “No need to debate it with you now, but Trump is a national disgrace and an international pariah.”

“To go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him.”

He also accused Trump of embarking on a “racist” movement.

“Yup, the whole birthed movement was racist,” Powell wrote in an August 21 email to his former aide Emily Miller.

“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.”

media_camera Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka at a campaign event in Aston, Pennsylvania. Picture: Mark Makela/Getty Images/AFP

In a June 17 email to Miller, Powell said Trump “is in the process of destroying himself, no need for Dems to attack him. [Speaker of the House] Paul Ryan is calibrating his position again.”

Powell also didn’t think highly of former Vice President Dick Cheney and his family.

“They are idiots and spent force peddling a book that ain’t going nowhere,” Powell wrote in an email to Kenneth Duberstein, the former White House chief of staff to President Reagan.

Powell was referencing a book Cheney wrote with his daughter Liz Cheney, titled “Exception: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.”

The emails were posted on DCLeaks.com, a website which has been alleged to be an outlet for hackers tied to the Russian intelligence groups.

The website — which says it intends to expose the misuse of political power — has previously released emails from other Washington political figures.

Trump Unveils Plan to Make Child Care Cheaper Trump Unveils Plan to Make Child Care Cheaper

Originally published as Powell slays with giant burn book