The Internet’s ‘Texts From Hillary’ Meme Likely Led To Hillary Clinton’s Email Scandal

Hillary Clinton Testifies Before House Select Committee On Benghazi Attacks
Getty Image

Back in October, Bernie Sanders famously declared that people were sick of hearing about Hillary Clinton’s damn emails. Yet here we are, eight months later, still talking about them. Your level of horror at hearing Hillary ran all her sensitive Secretary of State emails through a personal server hosted in her bathroom really depends on your technical savvy. Network admins have compiled a laundry list of mind-boggling security flaws with how that server was run.

But even the less technical folks out there noticed something was odd with the way Hillary was running things before the existence of her server became known. Back in 2012, people on the internet had a fun couple of weeks making “texts from Hillary” memes showing Hillary using her Blackberry phone. But wait a second … aren’t Blackberry phones banned for high-end governmental use due to numerous security issues?

A lawsuit brought by a group called Judicial Watch led to the deposition of State Department official Karin Lang. She admitted the 2012 meme had officials worried Hillary Clinton wasn’t doing things by the books. Via The Verge:

“In — when Mrs. Clinton’s photo appeared in the media with her using — appearing to use some sort of a mobile device, Clarence Finney checked… to confirm whether or not she still — whether the answer was still that she did not have a State.gov e-mail account,” the staffer said in the deposition. The answer came back: Clinton still didn’t have a State.gov account.

It’s still unclear what the primary reason was for Clinton’s refusal to give up her Blackberry and run a server from home. Those around her claim she was a Blackberry ‘addict’ and point to several exchanges with various departments where she and her people fought to get her use of the once-popular phone allowed. Others point to her private server allowing her to skirt Freedom of Information requests and avoid additional scrutiny leading up to her run for president.

If that second part was part of the plan, it’s certainly blown up in her face. The FBI demanded copies of all the emails on the private server and Clinton aides were caught handing over an incomplete set. Depositions continue, and FBI Director James Comey is a by the books type that isn’t likely to give Hillary Clinton a pass if she’s found to have endangered national security through these security lapses. And to think, we had evidence of it all going down back in 2012 because of a meme. Won’t somebody pay attention to the memes!

(via The Verge)

×