Like Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State Colin Powell also used a personal email account during his tenure at the State Department, an aide confirmed in a statement.“He was not aware of any restrictions nor does he recall being made aware of any over the four years he served at State,” the statement says. “He sent emails to his staff generally via their State Department email addresses. These emails should be on the State Department computers. He might have occasionally used personal email addresses, as he did when emailing to family and friends.”
Not quite so "unprecedented" Mr. Metcalfe. And Powell was on your watch. But maybe Powell did something different? Metcalfe says:
[T]he Federal Records Act’s documentation and preservation requirements still called upon that official (or a staff assistant) to forward any such email into the State Department’s official records system, where it would have been located otherwise.
This appears to be exactly what former Secretary of State Colin Powell did during his tenure, just as other high-level government officials may do (or are supposed to do) under such exceptional circumstances during their times in office. [. .. .]
It also is what Hillary Clinton did. Indeed, Clinton went one better than Powell, by retaining the records. Powell said:
“He did not take any hard copies of emails with him when he left office and has no record of the emails.
Indeed, perhaps Mr. Metcalfe can find Powell's e-mails for him.
But Metcalfe continues with his ignorance and crackpotism:
OK, please now tell us, Secretary Clinton, exactly which “federal guideline” (even one will do, notwithstanding your claim of plurality) makes it “clear” that you can unilaterally decide, dispositively and with such finality, which of your work-related records are “personal” and which ones are not[.]
Um 5 FAM 544.3.2 Mr. Metcalfe?
E-mail message creators and recipients must decide whether a particular message is appropriate for preservation.
Now Mr. Metcalfe has had weeks at this point to familiarize himself with regulations he apparently had no notion of when he was DOJ's "head honcho" on FOIA. Clearly he did not. And just as clearly, he is an incompetent crackpot. Shame on Politico for publishing his drivel.
