Texts from Hillary

Last updated

Texts from Hillary was an internet meme that went viral in 2012, based on photographs of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. [1] The photos show Clinton holding a BlackBerry phone, wearing sunglasses. A Tumblr blog added various captions under the photo, imagining what Clinton might have been texting, and paired them with a matching photo to represent her imagined conversation partner.

Contents

Meme

The meme was based on two photographs of the same moment, from slightly different angles. One version of the photo was taken by Diane Walker from Time magazine, [2] the other by Kevin Lamarque from the Associated Press. [3] The photo was taken while Clinton was aboard a diplomatic trip to Libya.

Email controversy

In June 2016, a Freedom of Information Act deposition in a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, which was part of the Hillary Clinton email controversy, revealed that the photo caught the interest of State Department employees, who were inspired to investigate if Clinton was using a personal email account instead of an official state account. [4] [5] [6] [7]

Clinton used the photo as her Twitter avatar until a week after the controversy first broke. [8] [9] [10]

Related Research Articles

Judicial Watch (JW) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit American conservative activist group that files Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to investigate claimed misconduct by government officials. Founded in 1994, Judicial Watch has primarily targeted Democrats, in particular the administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as Hillary Clinton's role in them. It was founded by attorney Larry Klayman, and has been led by Tom Fitton since 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hillary Clinton</span> American politician and diplomat (born 1947)

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a U.S. senator representing New York from 2001 to 2009, and as the first lady of the U.S. to president Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party's nominee in the 2016 presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party and the first woman to win the popular vote for U.S. president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huma Abedin</span> American political staffer (born 1975)

Huma Mahmood Abedin is an American political staffer who was vice chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign for President of the United States. Before that, Abedin was deputy chief of staff to Clinton when she was U.S. Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013. She was also the traveling chief of staff and former assistant to Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael S. Schmidt</span> American journalist and author (born 1983)

Michael S. Schmidt is an American journalist, author, and correspondent for The New York Times in Washington, D.C. He covers national security and federal law enforcement, and has broken several high-profile stories. He is also a national security contributor for MSNBC and NBC News.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Weiner sexting scandals</span>

Anthony Weiner is a former member of the United States House of Representatives from New York City who has been involved in multiple sex scandals related to sexting.

Marcel Lehel Lazăr, known as Guccifer, is a Romanian hacker responsible for high-level computer security breaches in the U.S. and Romania. Lazăr targeted celebrities, Romanian and U.S. government officials, and other prominent persons.

Hillary Clinton is an American politician from the state of New York who was the Democratic Party's 2016 nominee for president of the United States. Clinton is the first woman in U.S. history to be nominated for president of the United States by a major political party. She was defeated in the 2016 general election by Republican Donald Trump.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The dress</span> Viral phenomenon regarding the colour of a dress

The dress was a 2015 online viral phenomenon centred on a photograph of a dress. Viewers disagreed on whether the dress was blue and black, or white and gold. The phenomenon revealed differences in human colour perception and became the subject of scientific investigations into neuroscience and vision science.

During her tenure as United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton drew controversy by using a private email server for official public communications rather than using official State Department email accounts maintained on federal servers. After a years-long FBI investigation, it was determined that Clinton's server did not contain any information or emails that were clearly marked classified. Federal agencies did, however, retrospectively determine that 100 emails contained information that should have been deemed classified at the time they were sent, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails were retroactively designated confidential by the State Department.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public image of Hillary Clinton</span>

The cultural and political image of Hillary Clinton has been explored since the early 1990s, when her husband Bill Clinton launched his presidential campaign, and has continued to draw broad public attention during her time as First Lady of the United States, U.S. Senator from New York, 67th United States Secretary of State, and the Democratic Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media in the 2016 United States presidential election</span>

Social media played an important role in shaping the course of events surrounding the 2016 United States presidential election. It facilitated greater voter interaction with the political climate; unlike traditional media, social media gave people the ability to create, comment on, and share content related to the election.

During Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, a number of individuals, organizations, and countries allegedly contributed to the Clinton Foundation either before, or while, pursuing interests through ordinary channels with the U.S. State Department.

In March 2016, the personal Gmail account of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, was compromised in a data breach accomplished via a spear-phishing attack, and some of his emails, many of which were work-related, were hacked. Cybersecurity researchers as well as the United States government attributed responsibility for the breach to the Russian cyber spying group Fancy Bear, allegedly two units of a Russian military intelligence agency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pizzagate conspiracy theory</span> Debunked conspiracy theory about alleged child-sex ring

"Pizzagate" is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle, falsely claiming that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had discovered a pedophilia ring linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner's emails. It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Strzok</span> Former FBI agent (born 1970)

Peter Paul Strzok II is a former United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent. He was the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division and led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Previously, he had been the chief of the division's Counterespionage Section and led the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kristian Saucier</span> United States Navy sailor

Kristian Mark Saucier is a former U.S. Navy sailor who was convicted of unauthorized retention of national defense information and sentenced to one year in prison in October 2016 for taking photographs of classified engineering areas of USS Alexandria (SSN-757), a nuclear-powered attack submarine, in 2009. President Donald Trump pardoned Saucier on March 9, 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inspector General report on FBI and DOJ actions in the 2016 election</span>

A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election is the official 568-page report of the actions taken by the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) during the 2016 U.S. presidential election connected with Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, prepared by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) "in response to requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations, and members of the public."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections (July 2016 – election day)</span>

This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

Douglass Mackey is an American social media influencer who posted under the alias Ricky Vaughn. In March 2023, he was convicted for conspiring to deprive citizens of their right to vote in the 2016 presidential election.

References

  1. "The Photograph That Has Everyone Texting Hillary Clinton". 9 April 2012.
  2. "'Texts from Hillary' photographer didn't LOL— at first". The Washington Post .
  3. "Reuters photog who took 'Texts from Hillary' picture says viral meme was 'a mystery to me'". 13 April 2012.
  4. Lecher, Colin (10 June 2016). "'Texts from Hillary' photo raised questions about Clinton's email habits at State Department".
  5. "That Viral Photo of Hillary Checking Her Phone Made the State Department Want to Investigate Her Email Usage". 10 June 2016.
  6. Tacopino, Joe (10 June 2016). "This photo was the beginning of the end for Hillary".
  7. "Clinton BlackBerry photo led to State official's query about email account". Politico .
  8. Worl, Justin (8 March 2015). "Hillary Clinton Drops 'Text from Hillary' Twitter Avatar".
  9. "Hillary Clinton changed her 'Texts from Hillary' Twitter avatar". The Washington Post .
  10. "The 'Texts from Hillary' meme isn't so funny anymore". The Washington Post .