Hillary Clinton told the world that the reason she exclusively used her personal email as Secretary of State because she “wanted the simplicity of using one device.” But thanks to a FOIA request, we now know that Clinton used multiple devices for email, including an iPad and a BlackBerry. She also mixed her personal emails and chats with her official emails.
The Associated Press discovered Clinton’s duplicity after receiving four emails from the State Department in response to a 2013 FOIA request about drone strikes. In just four emails, it was immediately clear that Clinton’s email habits weren’t exactly disciplined. We already knew they weren’t secure, but this is just—wow. From the AP report:
In reply to a message sent in September 2011 by adviser Huma Abedin to Clinton’s personal email account, which contained an AP story about a drone strike in Pakistan, Clinton mistakenly replied with questions that appear to be about decorations.
“I like the idea of these,” she wrote to Abedin. “How high are they? What would the bench be made of? And I’d prefer two shelves or attractive boxes/baskets/ conmtainers (sic) on one. What do you think?”
Abedin replied, “Did u mean to send to me?” To which Clinton wrote, “No-sorry! Also, pls let me know if you got a reply from my ipad. I’m not sure replies go thru.”
That’s an honest mistake. But for such an oopsie to pop up in a sample size of just four emails, you have to wonder what happened in the other 60,000 or so that Clinton sent while serving as Secretary of State while the US was fighting multiple wars and killing civilians with robots.
We’ll never know, because the would-be presidential candidate permanently deleted all of her private email from that homebrew server. Who knows what happened to the archives of Clinton aides like Huma Abedin, who also had a private (and pretty secret) email hosted by the @clintonemail.com domain.
What we do know is that Clinton’s seemingly oblivious claim that she used a single device for email out of convenience is bullshit. She used at least two. Who knows. There might be an iPod Touch full of diplomatic correspondence lying around Chappaqua, New York somewhere.
[ AP]
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