Hillary Clinton used an iPad to send some emails from the private email account she exclusively used as secretary of state despite her recent claims that she used only one device — a Blackberry — out of convenience.
The Associated Press received emails from the State Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request it filed in 2013.
Only four emails were turned over, but one of them contains a clue which undermines Clinton’s claim that she used only one device to communicate.
In Sept. 2011, Clinton’s adviser, Huma Abedin, sent her boss a message containing an AP article about a drone strike in Pakistan.
Clinton accidentally replied with a personal message about decorations.
“I like the idea of these,” Clinton wrote 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?”
“Did u mean to send to me?” Abedin replied.
“No-sorry!” Clinton responded. “Also, pls let me know if you got a reply from my ipad. I’m not sure replies go thru.”
Clinton’s reference to her use of an iPad contradicts her explanation for why she failed to use a government account to send work-related email. She said that she used one account to send both personal and private messages because she could do so with one device instead of two.
“I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two,” she said at a March 10 press conference.
“Looking back, it would have been better for me to two separate phones and two email accounts. I thought using one device would be simpler, and obviously it hasn’t worked out that way.”
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill confirmed to the AP that the former First Lady did occasionally use an iPad, though mostly to read news clippings.
The AP’s report confirms one from earlier this month by Judicial Watch, the government watchdog group that, like the AP, has filed suit for Clinton’s email records.
A senior State Department official told Judicial Watch that it was believed that Clinton ignored rulings from the agency’s tech department by using an iPad.
The official said that Clinton’s inner circle made a half dozen requests with the State Department’s Office of Security Technology to use the iPad. The source said that the requests were all denied for security reasons. Apple products are considered less secure than Blackberry devices.
“From day one Hillary was trying to get the iPhone and the iPad approved,” the official told Judicial Watch. “She kept trying and trying to get us to approve the iPhone and the iPad, but we wouldn’t do it. Technology security experts tested the iPhone and the iPad several times because she constantly wanted them approved, but it never happened.”
The other emails obtained by the AP do not include sensitive information sent by Clinton. One message sent in 2011 between Clinton and her advisers contained a summary of a meeting in Cairo between Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain and senior Egyptian officials.
The email was forwarded from Abedin’s official government email account to Clinton’s private account, HDR22@clintonemail.com.
In one of the other emails, Clinton complained about leaks of classified information within the U.S. government.
“I think this is both dishonorable and dangerous and want to find way to say it,” Clinton wrote to two officials, asking if she should comment on the matter.
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