Colin Powell dismisses claim that he advises Hillary Clinton to use private email

U.S. former Secretary of State Colin Powell over the weekend pushed back on reports indicating that he advised Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to use a private email account while serving as the top diplomat of the country.

"Her people have been trying to pin it on me," said Powell in an interview with People magazine on Saturday. "The truth is, she was using (the private email server) for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did."

In the article published Sunday night, the People magazine reported that when asked why he thought Clinton had cited him in her defense of using the private email account, Powell, who served as the top U.S. diplomat under Republican President George W. Bush, responded, "Why do you think?"

Powell's remark came days after the New York Times reported that Clinton told federal investigators that Powell told her to use personal email at a dinner gathering during her three-and-half hour interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents last month.

However, according to NBC News, Powell's office responded to Clinton's claim by remarking that "General Powell has no recollection of the dinner conversation."

However, Powell did write Clinton an email memo "describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department," according to a statement by Powell's office. Enditem