The latest twist in the Hillary Clinton email scandal involves former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Last Thursday (Aug. 19), The New York Times reported that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had told FBI investigators in early July that it was Powell who suggested she use her personal email account during her tenure as secretary of state.

Allegedly, he'd bestowed the former first lady with such advice at a dinner hosted by Madeleine Albright in 2009.

This has been Clinton's tactic during the entirety of the email debacle — to argue that her predecessors engaged in similar practices.

However, one distinction between Powell's and Clinton's misuse of personal email accounts is this: During his time as secretary of state, Powell sent just two correspondences that were retroactively marked as classified.

Clinton, on the other hand, sent more than 2,000.

Powell's office responded Thursday evening in a statement claiming that he had no recollection of the dinner conversation at Madeleine Albright's.

Then, on Saturday, Powell himself spoke out to set the record straight.

"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 as secretary of state]," Powell stated at an "Apollo in the Hamptons" event, according to a Page Six report released Sunday. "Her people have been trying to pin it on me."

When asked why Clinton's team was attempting to blame him, he responded, "Why do you think?" before adding, "It doesn't bother me. It's okay, I'm free."

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