Colin Powell says Clinton was using private email server before he suggested it

Colin Powell blamed Hillary Clinton&#039;s &quot;people&quot; for &quot;trying to pin&quot; Clinton&#039;s use of a personal email server on him.

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George W. Bush's former secretary of state, Colin Powell, is tired of Hillary Clinton blaming him for her email scandal. Clinton allegedly told the FBI that her use of a private email server came as a suggestion from Powell, a moment that is documented in a new biography of Bill Clinton:

Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, [Madeleine] Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation's next top diplomat. 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] confirmed a decision she had made months earlier — to keep her personal account and use it for most messages. [Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton]

He clarified for the magazine that "the truth is, she was using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.