Andrea Mitchell on Clinton-Powell Email Comparisons: ‘A Lot’ of ‘Obvious Differences,’ Powell Didn’t Use Private Email for Classified Info

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” MSNBC host and NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell stated that there were “a lot” of “obvious” differences between former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s email use and Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email use, including that Powell never used his private email for classified material.

Mitchell was asked about reporting in the New York Times that the Clinton campaign is using the claim that former Secretary of State Colin Powell used a private email, and suggested that Clinton do the same.

She responded, “There are a lot of differences though, and I think the Powell office may be clearing this up. I was checking late last night and overnight, and they’re going to at least try to explain that there were differences. Yes, he wrote her a memo saying he that used his AOL account for unclassified email, to spark better communication internally, because there was no comparable system in 2001 when he took office inside the state Department. But that for classified information, he used only the desktop in his seventh floor office, in that secure space on the seventh floor of the State Department, and pushed very hard, I was covering the State Department then, and pushed really hard to try to get better computers. They had Wangs when I first went over there in 1994. I mean, it was laughable. There was no communication system. So, he felt that using his private email on unclassified daily messages to aides would improve the — vastly improve the communication internally, but never anything that was classified. And that that is the difference, and never told her to do anything about a private server and never mentioned a server and never conceived of a server, so that there are obvious differences.”

(h/t Grabien)

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett