Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell rips Hillary Clinton, calls Donald Trump ''a National Disgrace'' in leaked emails

US: Former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, a retired general who served under three Republican presidents rips Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in leaked emails that reveals Clinton’s reaction to losing the 2008 presidential nomination to Barack Obama. Powell also branded Trump “a national disgrace.”

In the emails, first reported by BuzzFeed News, Powell lamented Clinton’s attempt to equate her email practices with his.

In one email, shared on Twitter by Intercept journalist Lee Fang, private equity investor and Democrat donor Jeffrey Leeds told Powell that all Clinton wants is to win the upcoming presidential election.

“It’s the one prize she wants. She has everything else. And she HATES the President (‘that man’ as the Clintons call him) kicked her a** in 2008. She can’t believe it or accept it,” Leeds wrote in March 2015, referring to president Obama.

Powell told BuzzFeed that he does not deny the authenticity of the emails.

 

Following the leaks, Powell in a statement to NBC News, said “the hackers have a lot more” of his emails.

Powell also criticized Clinton's aides for roping him into the controversy over Clinton's use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State in the newly leaked emails.

Powell admitted to using a commercial email address for some official business.

Powell wrote that he had told Clinton’s “minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try” according to an email reported by NBC.

Powell declared of Clinton in another spot, that: “Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.”

Powell called Trump in the emails, “a national disgrace” adding that he remained relatively quiet during Trump's rise.

“To go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him,” Powell said.

Powell also accused Trump of embarking on a “racist” movement in an August 21 email to his former aide Emily Miller.

“Yup, the whole birthed movement was racist,” Powell wrote.

“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.”