Powell warned Clinton about using BlackBerry at State

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised Hillary Clinton to avoid using a BlackBerry to conduct official business at the State Department, according to notes from the FBI’s investigation into her private email server. 

Two days after she was sworn in as secretary of State, Clinton emailed Powell to ask about his use of a BlackBerry during his tenure at Foggy Bottom under President George W. Bush. 

{mosads}FBI investigators said Powell told Clinton that if it became “public” that Clinton had a BlackBerry and she used it to “do business,” her emails could become “official record and subject to the law.”

“Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data,” Powell responded via email. 

Clinton, now the Democratic nominee for president, told the FBI that she understood Powell’s advice to mean that any of her work-related communications would become government record, and she claimed that his comments “did not factor into her decision to use a personal email account.”

Clinton’s recollection of Powell’s advice come as she has struggled to publicly explain why she used a private email server while secretary of State. 

The revelation has damaged her presidential campaign, renewing concerns about her trustworthiness and honesty among voters. 

After a lengthy investigation into whether she mishandled classified information on her server, FBI Director James Comey declined to pursue criminal charges against Clinton. 

But he said her use of the server was “extremely careless.”

Journalist Joe Conason previously reported on an in-person conversation between Clinton and Powell about email use. 

Conason wrote in his book that 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.”

A Powell spokesman told CNN last month he has “no recollection” of the conversation.