Colin Powell LIED about advising Hillary Clinton on her email server? Let me stop and put on my shocked face.

But yes, that's a thing that actually happened. Rep. Elijah Cummings released the full email from Powell to Clinton tonight, just as the Commander in Chief forum was beginning.

The interesting part for me was when he wrote, "If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it it government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law...Be very careful. I got around it by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data."

He explained earlier in the email that he used a computer hooked up to a private phone from his office, and sometimes used it to conduct official business. That certainly sounds secure, doesn't it?

Cummings brought down the hammer in his commentary:

“This email exchange shows that Secretary Powell advised Secretary Clinton with a detailed blueprint on how to skirt security rules and bypass requirements to preserve federal records, although Secretary Clinton has made clear that she did not rely on this advice.

This email exchange also illustrates the longstanding problem that no Secretary of State ever used an official unclassified email account until the current Secretary of State.

The Republican obsession with Secretary Clinton has reached a fever pitch, and they have been using taxpayer resources to single her out in a desperate and abusive attempt to hurt her presidential campaign.

If Republicans were truly concerned with transparency, strengthening FOIA, and preserving federal records, they would be attempting to recover Secretary Powell’s emails from AOL, but they have taken no steps to do so despite the fact that this period — including the run-up to the Iraq War — was critical to our nation’s history.”

Here is the email exchange in its entirety:

Colin Powell email to Hillary Clinton