If the provenance of the emails is dubious, and reading them seems a bit prurient, some of them sketch an interesting portrait of Powell in late career. Despite an extraordinary record, and frequent references to hobnobbing with other foreign-policy luminaries, the Powell that emerges in the emails is a sort of everyman—the last rational American, maybe. He hates Donald Trump, finds Hillary Clinton bumbling and foolish, sees the Benghazi scandal as generally a farce, and remains angry about the Iraq War.

In the case of Iraq, it was Powell’s dramatic (and later debunked) testimony before the United Nations that helped clinch the case for war, at least with the American populace, thanks to Powell’s reputation. That moment has generally been treated as a stain on his record ever since. In July, Powell sent Condoleezza Rice, who was national security adviser at the time and later succeeded Powell at State, a link to a news item in which former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was skeptical of waging war to bring democracy to Iraq. BuzzFeed reports Rice’s reaction:

First, we didn’t invade Iraq to bring democracy—but once we overthrew Saddam, we had a view of what should follow. If Don and the Pentagon had done their job (after claiming the rights to lead post-war rebuilding—things might have turned out differently)… Don should just stop talking. He puts his foot in his mouth every time.

Powell replied, agreeing: “Doug [Feith] and Paul [Wolfowitz] claims [sic] they had a plan (turn Iraq and our Army over to [Ahmed] Chalibi) and leave … 43 knew what had to be done, specifically rejected the Chalibi crowd and as you say the boys in the band were brain dead.”

Powell was similarly skeptical of efforts to turn the September 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, into a political bludgeon.

“Benghazi is a stupid witch hunt. Basic fault falls on a courageous ambassador who thoughts Libyans now love me and I am ok in this very vulnerable place,” he wrote to Rice in December 2015, though he added, “But blame also rests on his leaders and supports back here. [Under Secretary of State] Pat Kennedy, Intel community, DS and yes HRC.” Rice agreed.

Despite dismissing that flap, Powell shows himself to have little patience for Hillary Clinton in the email flap, and particularly for her public-relations approach and her small cadre of closely held, extremely loyal aides, willing to go to great lengths to defend her.

In August 2015, as The Intercept reported, Powell complained, “Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.” At the time, he seemed most annoyed about the effects of the scandal on communications internally, adding, “They are going to dick up the legitimate and necessary use of email with friggin record rules.”