likening her e-mail use to his. >> my predecessors did the same thing. >> reporter: he told a friend last month, "i told her staff three times not to try that gambit." adding, "sad thing is clinton could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done." powell's hacked e-mails reveal a complicated relationship with clinton. on one hand he called her "a friend i respect." on the other he said, "everything clinton touches she kind of screws up with hubris." his comments about donald trump were even more scathing. "trump is a national disgrace and an international pariah," he wrote in june. and last month, he said trump "is at 1% with black voters and will drop. he takes us for idiots. he can never overcome what he did to obama with the search for ide birth certificate." a powell aide confirmed today that powell did write those e- mails, but beyond that, had no comment. notably, scott, neither did trump or clinton.