Hillary Clinton was so addicted to her BlackBerry that she emailed her predecessor, Colin Powell, to ask his advice on how to continue using the device at the State Department.
The Jan. 23, 2009 email was released along with Powell’s response on Wednesday by House Democrats.
“Dear Colin…I have one pressing question which only you can answer!” Clinton wrote to Powell. “What were the restrictions on your use of your blackberry? Did you use it in your personal office?”
Jan. 23, 2009 email from Hillary Clinton to Colin Powell
The email, which Democrats released despite a marking that reads “NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE,” has been the topic of intense debate in recent weeks. News leaked last month that Clinton discussed the exchange during her July 2 interview with the FBI. And the bureau’s report, which was released on Friday, referenced the exchange.
The report provided only a few sentences from the Powell email. But one eye-grabbing line was his advice to Clinton: “Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.”
Despite being informed that an off-the-books email system could be used to avoid transparency, Clinton used a personal BlackBerry — at least eight in total — throughout her State Department tenure.
In the email, Clinton, who reportedly became addicted to using a BlackBerry during the 2008 presidential campaign, complained that President Obama “has struck a blow for berry addicts like us.”
“I just have to figure out how to bring along the State Dept,” she wrote.
“Any and all advice is welcome,” she added.
Powell informed Clinton that while he did not have a BlackBerry, he used a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line. He used an AOL account during his tenure, which lasted from 2001 to 2005.
As House Democrats pointed out, the email shows him openly discussing how to avoid being detected using private communications systems.
“So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers,” wrote Powell. “I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels.”
Colin Powell Jan. 23, 2009 email to Hillary Clinton
Powell went on to criticize the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s rules regarding the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs), which are similar to BlackBerries. He told Clinton that he disagreed with the security agents as well as the CIA over those concerns.
He went on to caution Clinton about a “real danger” associated with a person in her position using a BlackBerry.
“If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it it government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law,” he wrote.
In the days and weeks after her exchange with Powell, Clinton asked the National Security Agency to build her a souped-up BlackBerry similar to one created for Obama. The agency denied the request. She was offered a State Department-issued BlackBerry at other points during her tenure, but she continued using personal devices.
It is unclear why Democrats think the email provides cover for Clinton. One interpretation of it is that Clinton was so desperate to maintain her use of a personal BlackBerry that she ignored warnings about the pitfalls of doing so.
But Democrats pinned the blame on Powell.
“This email exchange shows that Secretary Powell advised Secretary Clinton with a detailed blueprint on how to skirt security rules and bypass requirements to preserve federal records, although Secretary Clinton has made clear that she did not rely on this advice,” Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings said in a statement.
While Clinton told the FBI that Powell’s advice to her did not influence her decision to use a personal email system at the State Department, she has made comments recently which call that claim into question.
During an interview with “60 Minutes” in July, she said that “it was recommended” to her that using a private system “would be convenient.”
“Other people did have — other secretaries of state, other high-ranking members of the administrations, plural. And it was recommended that it would be convenient, and I thought it would be. Its turned out to be anything but,” she said during that interview.