Colin Powell — no doubt after he got serious heat from his fellow Republicans — currently claims not to remember a certain dinner conversation from 2009 wherein he advised Hillary Clinton, who had a few months earlier taken over the position he once held as secretary of state, to use a private email account just like he did.
He says that he doesn’t remember it now, but he sure did two months ago:
He says that he doesn’t remember it now, but he sure did two months ago:
But last June, while reporting on Powell’s advice to Clinton for my book, I contacted his office for comment—and got a very different answer.
His principal assistant, Margaret “Peggy” Cifrino, informed me then via email that their calendar showed that the Albright dinner had occurred in June 2009. While he didn’t recall some details of the dinner because it had occurred seven years ago, according to Cifrino, he remembered what he did and didn’t say to Clinton on the topic in question that evening:
So it is perplexing for him to say he doesn’t remember that dinner conversation at all now, since, according to his own assistant, he remembered at least some of what he said as recently as two months ago.
UPDATE: More from the dinner conversation Colin now says he doesn’t remember:
His principal assistant, Margaret “Peggy” Cifrino, informed me then via email that their calendar showed that the Albright dinner had occurred in June 2009. While he didn’t recall some details of the dinner because it had occurred seven years ago, according to Cifrino, he remembered what he did and didn’t say to Clinton on the topic in question that evening:
He does recall sharing with Secretary Clinton his use of his email account and how useful it was and transformative for the Department. He knew nothing then or until recently about her private home server and a personal domain, nor, therefore, could he have advised her on that or suggested it. By June I would assume her email system was already set up.
So it is perplexing for him to say he doesn’t remember that dinner conversation at all now, since, according to his own assistant, he remembered at least some of what he said as recently as two months ago.
UPDATE: More from the dinner conversation Colin now says he doesn’t remember:
In Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton, to be published in September by Simon & Schuster, I report on a dinner party that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hosted for Hillary Clinton several months after she assumed that office in 2009, with Powell in attendance:
Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel [to Clinton].... Powell suggested that she use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer on his desk. Saying that his use of personal email had been transformative for the department, Powell thus confirmed a decision she had made months earlier.
Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel [to Clinton].... Powell suggested that she use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer on his desk. Saying that his use of personal email had been transformative for the department, Powell thus confirmed a decision she had made months earlier.
