Former Secretary of State Colin Powell bristled at Hillary Clinton in what he called a "mini-tantrum" as he says she and her "Mafia" tried to drag him into her email controversy, newly released emails show.

"I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hamptons party to get their attention. She keeps tripping into these 'character' minefields," he wrote in a private email hacked from his Gmail account, The Intercept reports.

In another email, the retired four-star general remarked, "[I] warned her staff three times over the past two years not to try to connect it to me."

The Daily Caller reports that in another email, he complained of "Hillary's Mafia" trying to "suck me into" her email dilemma.

Powell's camp believes the Clinton campaign has tried to imply he had encouraged and instructed her on the use of a private email system to skirt official communication lines.

"They are going to dick up the legitimate and necessary use of emails with friggin (sic) record rules. I saw email more like a telephone than a cable machine," Powell wrote to his business partner Jeffrey Leeds. "As long as the stuff is unclassified. I had a secure State.gov machine. Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris."

"Sad thing," Powell also wrote. "HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me to it."