New emails released by hackers this week include some sent by former Secretary of State Colin Powell that reveal some harsh opinions he holds for both Presidential candidates. Within the emails released by DCLeaks.com, the retired 4-star general calls Trump a “national disgrace” and chastises Clinton for the whole private server debacle.
The messages were obtained by DCLeaks, which many in the democratic party believe has ties to Russian intelligence services. While the hackers identities are unclear, Powell has come out to confirm that the released correspondents are authentic and that the hackers “have a lot more.”
In a June 17th email to a former aide, Colin Powell attacks Trump calling him a “national disgrace”, an “international pariah”, and that the Republican Presidential candidate was “in the process of destroying himself, no need for Dems to attack him.” In a later email, he also attacks him for propelling the Obama “birther” movement and calling it “racist”.
The written bashing wasn’t particularly harsh towards Trump, some would argue. Hillary Clinton, who Powell has been publicly frustrated with after she tried pinning her email scandal on him, had some severe words for her too.
“I have told Hilleary’s [sic] minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try,” he wrote in an email, referring to the server scandal.
“I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hampton’s party to get their attention. She keeps tripping into these ‘character’ minefields,” he wrote.
In an email exchange to wealthy private equity investor Jeffrey Leeds last year, Powell lays into Clinton and her extreme manipulation of the situation she got herself into.
“They are going to dick up the legitimate and necessary use of emails with friggin record rules. I saw email more like a telephone than a cable machine,” he said. “As long as the stuff is unclassified. I had a secure State.gov machine. Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.”
He also recounted a bad memory that he blames on Clinton: “I told you about the gig I lost at a University because she so overcharged them they came under heat and couldn’t any fees for awhile. I should send her a bill.”
Jeffrey Leeds was also not shy to share his opinion of Clinton through email. Lee Fang, an investigative journalist for The Intercept, was the first to report that Leeds told Powell in the correspondence in March of 2015 that Hillary “hates” Obama.
“I think Hillary can’t believe she might not make it,” Leeds said. “It’s the one prize she wants. She has everything else. And she HATES that the President (“that man,” as the Clintons call him) kicked her ass in 2008. She can’t believe it or accept it.”
In another email from March of 2016, Leeds wrote to Powell about Hillary’s primary loss to Bernie Sanders in Maine.
“She’s got trouble too,” Leeds said. “No one likes her and the criminal thing ain’t over. I don’t think the President would weep if she found herself in real legal trouble. She’ll pummel his legacy if she gets a chance and he knows it.”
Though former Secretary Colin Powell has defined himself as a “life-long Republican,” he endorsed Barack “that man” Obama in both the 2008 and 2012 elections.
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