Former secretary of state Colin Powell, a Republican who served under George W Bush, will reportedly vote for the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, in the upcoming general election.
Speaking at the Long Island Association, a trade group and civic organization based outside New York City, Powell told the group that “I am voting for Hillary Clinton,” according to the New York Times.
Powell, a retired four-star general and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who was once considered a potential presidential candidate himself, reportedly cited Republican nominee Donald Trump’s inexperience and negative messaging as contributing to his cross-party endorsement.
The former secretary of state joins other officials from the second Bush administration in indicating their plans to vote for Clinton or their disavowal of Trump, including former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff, former commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez, former treasury secretary Henry Paulson and former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Powell’s successor who urged Trump to withdraw from the race earlier this month:
Powell’s support indicates a shift in mood regarding Clinton from earlier this year. Hacked emails were released last month in which he had shown annoyance with Clinton when she cited his use of private email servers during his tenure at the state department as proof that her own email scandal was a mountain made out of a molehill.
“Her people are trying to pin it on me,” Powell wrote in August, of Clinton’s email scandal.
In another email he wrote: “I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect.”
He added: “A 70-year-old person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still dicking bimbos at home (according to the NYP).”
