State: BlackBerry was Hillary’s
The iconic BlackBerry that Hillary Clinton used during her tenure as the nation’s top diplomat was personal and not provided by the State Department, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday.
{mosads}Psaki said during her daily briefing that Clinton was not mandated to use State-issued tech.
“No one is required to be issued a State Department BlackBerry,” she said.
“Obviously she had a personal device. I can’t speak to what was done on that personal device and what was not,” Psaki added later.
Clinton was famously pictured using her BlackBerry during an October 2011 flight to Libya, a photo that was part of the meme “Texts from Hillary” that played out potential text conversations.
State Department security protocols prior to a new generation of BlackBerry devices in early 2014 barred employees from having personal and official email on the same device, Psaki said Thursday.
On Tuesday, during a press conference at the United Nations to explain why she exclusively used a private email account during her four-year tenure as secretary of State, Clinton said it was easier to use one device for work and personal emails instead of two.
“I did it for convenience and I now, looking back, think that it might have been smarter to have those two devices from the very beginning,” she said.
Clinton disclosed during a Silicon Valley event last month that she owns a BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad and iPad mini. “I’m like two steps short of a hoarder,” she said then.
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Regular the hill posts