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.