“Convenience is not an acceptable reason to skirt information security rules. She should be held to the same standard as everyone else,” said Austin Evers, executive director at American Oversight, upon hearing the news that former UN ambassador Nikki Haley used a Blackberry smartphone to communicate with staff regarding North Korea’s July, 2017 test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit the US.
“For an administration obsessed with security lapses others have committed, and for a still-rising star in the Republican party, this could be more than a little embarrassing,” The Daily Beast notes in their exclusive report on Haley’s security violation:
Haley was in a rush as she headed to her office—“On my way in”—shooting emails back and forth with top aides who’d been with her since she was governor of South Carolina. She needed to make a statement, and they were drafting it for her. “Let’s clean this up,” she writes after looking at some of the copy. “Pretty this up for me,” she says, then, “Can’t find my password for the high side.”
Long story short, Nikki Haley violated procedure because she couldn’t remember her password.
Haley’s emails were part of a trove of classified documents secured by a FOIA request by American Oversight, a non-profit watchdog organization engaged in investigating the Trump administration.