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   Former Secretary of State Colin Powell blasted Donald Trump as a “national disgrace” and criticized repeated investigations into the 2012 attack in Benghazi as a “witch hunt” in personal emails leaked online by hackers. 
   
   Powell, a retired 4-star general and a Republican, confirmed the authenticity of the emails to NBC News. 
   
   "The hackers have a lot more," he added. 
   
   The contents of the emails were first reported by Buzzfeed News. It said the messages had been obtained by the website DCLeaks.com, which a federal law official told NBC News is believed to have ties to Russian intelligence services. 
   
   Powell called Trump a "national disgrace" and "international pariah" in a June 17 email to a former aide, saying the Republican presidential contender was "in the process of destroying himself, no need for Dems to attack him." 
   
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   A subsequent email to the same former aide on Aug. 21 slammed Trump for spurring the "racist" so-called "birther" movement — the consistently debunked rumor that President Barack Obama was born in another country. 
   
   "Yup, the whole birther movement was racist," Powell wrote, according to Buzzfeed. “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." 
   
   There was no immediate response from the Trump campaign to the emails. 
   
   Powell in another email the same day dismissed Trump’s stated overtures to African-American voters. "There is nothing he can say that will sway black voters so he might as well say it to white folks," Powell wrote. 
   
   "He takes us for idiots," Powell, who is black, said in the email. “He can never overcome what he tried to do to Obama with his search for the birth certificate hoping to force Obama out of the Presidency. Or, demanding his school transcripts to see how he got into Harvard — (eg, affirmative action )." 
   
   Powell didn’t restrict his criticism to Trump. In a Dec. 17 email to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Powell said "Benghazi is a stupid witch hunt." 
   
   Led mostly by Republicans, eight Congressional investigations have been launched into the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate and another facility in Libya that left four Americans dead, including U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens. 
   
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   The House Select Committee on Benghazi report released in June found an array of bureaucratic miscues and inter-agency blunders but does not specifically blame former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 
   
   Powell, in the 2015 email to Rice, said: "Basic fault falls on a courageous ambassador who thought Libyans now love me and I am ok in this very vulnerable place. But blame also rests on his leaders and supporters back here. Pat Kennedy, Intel community, DS and yes, HRC." 
   
   The revelations mark the latest in a string of headlines around Powell's email correspondence. His online activity has figured heavily of late into the controversy around Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. 
   
   Powell expressed frustration about his name being linked to Clinton's email issues, writing in another leaked email: "I have told Hilleary’s [sic] minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try," Powell wrote. 
   
   In July of 2015, Powell complained to his broker at Merrill Lynch that questions raised about Clinton’s email and speaking fees impacted his life — Powell said he had to disclose his past use of emails, and "I had a gig cancelled because the client, a public university, caught hell from overpaying HRC." 
   
   "HRC is the gift that keeps on taking," Powell wrote in the July 1, 2015 email, according to the leaked documents. 
   
   And Powell in a 2014 email said during a conversation about Hillary Clinton "I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect." 
   
   Powell, not referring to Clinton by name, then went on to apparently describe her as having "unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational" along with some colorful references to her husband's rumored philandering, rumors he attributed to the New York Post. 
   
   While Powell has described himself as a lifelong Republican, he twice endorsed Obama — a Democrat — for president. ||||| Congressional Democrats are scrambling to assess the scope of a leak that revealed the personal data of nearly 200 current and former House Democrats, and they are bracing for more leaked data. Ionic Security CEO Adam Ghetti explains how the FBI deals with data breaches. Photo: Getty 
   
   WASHINGTON—Two websites created in recent months and whose operators are believed to have ties to the Russian government now serve as portals for leaking sensitive and at times embarrassing information about the Democratic Party and its supporters. 
   
   Some computer experts and Democrats in Congress believe both websites—the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress page and DCLeaks.com—have ties to Russian intelligence services and that the sites are using hacked information to try to influence the November elections. 
   
   ... ||||| Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell salutes the audience. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst 
   
   The Daily Caller can exclusively reveal that two years worth of emails have been stolen from former secretary of state Colin Powell’s personal email account. 
   
   The emails range from between June 2014 to August 2016. The most recent emails are dated August 19, 2016. 
   
   When asked for comment regarding the apparent hack, Powell replied: “I wasn’t aware of any infiltration of my Gmail account. If accurate my privacy has been violated.” 
   
   “As a private citizen I would hope journalists would respect that privacy,” he added. 
   
   The emails were given to hacktivist group DCLeaks by unnamed hackers. They emails are currently password protected. DCLeaks puts the total number of hacked Powell emails in their possession at around 30,000. 
   
   The Daily Caller was able to examine some of the hacked emails, which cover topics such as Donald Trump’s feud with the Khan family and Hillary Clinton’s email server. 
   
   The hacked emails reveal some people close to Powell expect him to endorse Hillary Clinton before the Nov. 8 election. 
   
   Former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman — a Republican who has said she will vote for Clinton over Trump — sent Powell an email in late July with the subject line, “Hillary.” 
   
   “Have you endorsed her yet?” the one line email said. 
   
   “Nope,” Powell replied. “By the way, if you have a WSJ today take a look at my piece on immigration. I can send it you missed. On Oped pages.” 
   
   “You’ll recall that in 2008 and 2012 I waited until early fall,” he added. 
   
   Powell confirmed the email chain’s legitimacy to TheDC. 
   
   On July 30, Powell emailed several people a link to a Huffington Post article on Trump’s then-budding feud with the Khans. 
   
   On August 2, longtime Powell friend and adviser Harlan Ullman asked Powell, “when are you going to throw the knock out blow?” 
   
   “I try not to bother someone who is beating himself and the GOP up. And please, don’t start bugging me like every newsie and getter in town,” Powell replied. “If and when I do it will be known.” 
   
   This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 
   
   Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHasson
target: – The emails of a former United States secretary of state are again making headlines in the 2016 race, and this time Donald Trump is the one who won't be pleased. Hackers got into the personal account of Colin Powell, and the former secretary of state is revealed to have called Trump a "national disgrace" and an "international pariah" who peddles racist sentiment, reports BuzzFeed. The website says the emails were obtained by the site DCLeaks.com, which is suspected to have ties to Russian intelligence services, per the Wall Street Journal. A June 17 email calling him a "national disgrace" was to a former aide in which Powell adds that Trump was "in the process of destroying himself"—thus sparing Democrats lots of work. In another email to that same former aide on Aug. 21, Powell went after Trump as racist, citing his previous push to try to show Obama wasn't a US citizen. "Yup, the whole birther movement was racist," Powell wrote. "When Trump couldn't keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim." In another, Powell tells CNN's Fareed Zakaria that he's reluctant to call out Trump publicly because it would backfire. “To go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him.” The former secretary of state confirmed the emails' authenticity to NBC News and said the hackers have more to come. In fact, the Daily Caller reports that hackers stole two years of Powell's emails, from June 2014 to August of this year.