Colin Powell’s Leaked Emails Reveal Former Statesman’s Opinion On The Two Presidential Candidates
Recently, leaked emails from Colin Powell show that the former secretary of state isn’t a huge fan of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Powell has strongly criticized Trump in these emails, even calling him a “national disgrace and an international pariah.”
The series of messages were leaked by the organization DCleaks, which has recently been involved in other hacks involving high-profile public figures. Peggy Cifrino, an aide to Powell, has confirmed that the emails were genuine. Cifrino spoke to CNN about the leaks.
“The emails are accurate. No further comment at this time.”
The former secretary of state can be seen strongly criticizing Trump in these emails. Colin Powell hasn’t endorsed Trump, and until this point, his view on the Republican nominee was unknown to the media since he has been ignoring questions concerning Trump. In one of these emails from August, Powell, who led the State Department during the earlier phases of the George W. Bush presidency, criticizes the birther movement, which Donald Trump helped lead, calling it racist.
“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.”
Powell has also dismissed Trump’s claims that he could actually win the African-American votes or the women’s votes.
“For him to say yesterday that within four years he would have 95% of blacks voting for him is schizo fantasy. And Ailes (former Fox News chief) as an adviser won’t heal with women.”
The former secretary of state even says that he believed Trump representing the United States would be embarrassing for the whole country.
“Trump is a national disgrace and an international pariah. He appeals to the worst angels of the GOP nature and poor white folks.”
In an email to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, from December, Powell comments on the network’s coverage of Trump’s Campaign. At that time, with Trump’s chances of winning the Republican nomination on a rapid rise, Powell pointed out that the negative coverage on Trump was doing him more good than bad.
“You guys are playing his game, you are his oxygen.”
Trump has since responded to these emails via a tweet targeted at Powell.
I was never a fan of Colin Powell after his weak understanding of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq = disaster. We can do much better!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2016
The leaks show that Powell isn’t particularly happy with Hillary Clinton either. He has criticized the way she handled her personal emails during her tenure as the secretary of state, as reported by the Intercept. Powell wrote the following about Hillary in a 2015 email.
“Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.”
When the FBI started investigating Clinton’s handling of confidential emails, Clinton had indicated that her practices of using a private email server had been used by Powell before her. Powell had publicly dismissed these claims, claiming that she was trying to pin the blame on him.
Hillary, in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, took sole responsibility for her errors. One of Powell’s leaked emails show a conversation between him and a former staffer for Clinton, Cheryl Mills, who forwarded a transcript of Clinton’s CNN interview to Powell, which he calls “very nice.”
“The only thing I would add is to simply say she had a private account on a public server before becoming SecState and continued to use it when she became SecState. On the other hand this might to lead to questions about the basement.”
In another email from August, Powell criticizes the way Hillary handled the whole situation.
“She could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me into it. I told her staff three times not to try that gambit.”
This isn’t the first time Powell’s private messages has been leaked. A hacker named Guccifer had previously leaked Powell’s emails in 2013.
[Feature Image by Randy Miramontez/Shutterstock]
