Washington (CNN) Former Secretary of State Colin Powell told his successor, Hillary Clinton, that he used his own personal computer to communicate with friends and foreign leaders and sent emails without going through the State Department server, according to emails released Wednesday by congressional Democrats. Clinton has previously said she reached out to Powell when she began serving as the nation's top diplomat to find out how he used personal devices. In a four-paragraph email response from Powell, he told Clinton he didn't use a BlackBerry, but detailed how he got around having his communications with both employees and people outside the State Department becoming part of the agency's official record.Powell has previously pushed back against reports that he advised Clinton on her emailPowell's spokesperson recently told CNN that he wrote a memo about his own use of an AOL account to Clinton
Stressing the major differences in technology between his tenure at the department and _'s, the spokesperson said: "At the time there was no equivalent system within the department.