Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has insisted for years that doesn’t own a smartphone or use e-mail. That’s what he has staff for — to e-mail, to tweet, to Instagram, to Facebook on his behalf.  But in what local papers are portraying as a gotcha moment this week, it was discovered that Branstad indeed gets e-mails on his personal BlackBerry. The flap — which is nowhere near Hillary Clinton dimensions — has now morphed into a bizarre debate over what e-mail actually is.  Here is how the story began: In November, Branstad sat for a deposition in a lawsuit accusing him of discriminating against a gay employee. Halfway through, the conversation got sidetracked when the interviewer discovered that the governor was receiving daily e-mails from his staff containing news clips.  “I get them on my Blackberry,” Branstad explained, according to a court document obtained by the Des Moines Register. This confused the interviewer.  Q. Governor, you told me that you did not have a smartphone, but apparently you do.  A. I have a BlackBerry, not a —  A. I don’t know. It’s just an old-fashioned Blackberry.  Q. It’s not a dumb phone.  According to communications director Jimmy Centers, Branstad uses a Blackberry Bold. Some Bold models lack touchscreens, but all versions have color screens, web browsers, cameras and can run applications. The manufacturer calls them smartphones.  But we are nitpicking here.  The confusion continued as the interviewer tried to understand how the governor was receiving e-mails if he did not have an e-mail account.  Q. Can you get e-mails on your BlackBerry?  A. No, because I don’t have an e-mail address.  Q. Well, Governor, somehow you get this document. This is Exhibit 79.  Q. It is, in fact, an e-mail. How does it come to you on your — on your BlackBerry?  A. Well, it does come to me on my phone.  Q. How does it do that?  A. Well, I don’t know. There’s an app for that.  Proving that we are all living in an episode of “Veep,” the conversation then circled back on itself to form an ouroboros of logical contradiction.  A. So there ‘s an app on my phone. If I click on that app, then this comes up.  Q. Okay. That’s — there ‘s an icon of some kind that you click on that —  A. Well, I think they call it an app. But yeah.  Q. All right. But you do not have an e-mail address?  Q. And you don’t get e-mails on your phone?  A. I don’t get e-mails.  On Thursday, the governor continued to deny that receiving e-mail on your phone constitutes an act of e-mail.  “These Des Moines Register accusations are just false,” he told KCCI 8. “The fact is I don’t have an e-mail address. I don’t send e-mails. I don’t get e-mails.”  Centers explained that there exists a special Gmail account solely for him to send the governor news clips. “The staff maintains the e-mail account,” he said. “There was no state business conducted. These are simply news articles.”  The name of the e-mail address is OfficeClips12@Gmail.com.  The governor can access it from his Blackberry, and he can send e-mails from the account as well. Centers said Branstad has only done so twice, both times by accident. Once he sent an e-mail to “v@vv,” which was undeliverable. Once he replied to Centers with a blank message and the default signature: “Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry.”  In spite of all this, Centers continues to insist that Branstad does not use e-mail. But checking your e-mail on your phone counts as using e-mail. Receiving e-mails from your staff counts as using e-mail. Sending accidental e-mails with your Blackberry counts as using e-mail.  It doesn’t seem that Branstad accepts those definitions.  Open records laws can make life tricky for public officials who leave a digital trail. Iowa’s statute is especially broad, with no exemptions for the governor — nor, indeed, for matters of pure personal embarrassment. On the advice of his lawyer, Branstad stopped e-mailing a few years ago when he took office, Centers said.  Branstad’s apparent confusion over smartphones, apps and e-mail is ironic because he has tried to portray himself as technologically savvy. His Instagram account has pictures of him taking selfies and using Skype.  A series of 2010 campaign ads show him tapping away on an iPad. “Want a brighter future? We’ve got an app for that,” the narrator says.  Earlier this month, the governor’s office announced that it had even opened an account on Meerkat, the live video streaming app. Fifteen people used Meerkat yesterday to watch Branstad sign a proclamation.
There's a mini-scandal in Iowa over whether or not the governor actually uses e-mail. (But he is on Meerkat.)