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State Department still hasn't sent all Clinton emails for review

The State Department acknowledged Thursday night that it has not yet distributed all Hillary Clinton's emails in need of interagency review to all the appropriate agencies, despite a court-ordered deadline Friday to complete the release of edited versions of all the messages.

State said last week that it would not make Friday's deadline because of an "oversight" that resulted in more than 7,000 pages of messages not being circulated appropriately for review. It asked for a one-month extension and warned that the process could be delayed further due to what was then the looming snowstorm.

Now, in a new court filing, State says that some of the records remain undistributed.

"The vast majority of the documents that still require interagency consultation have been sent to 18 agencies. Some of those agencies received only a few pages, while others received thousands of pages each. Many of the documents were sent to more than one agency. In addition, State still needs to complete delivery to 12 more agencies. State has experienced some difficulty contacting some of the appropriate agency personnel since the snowstorm and is still making arrangements with some of the receiving agencies for secure delivery of the documents," Justice Department lawyers representing State wrote in a submission to U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras.

The filing notes that federal government offices in the Washington area were officially closed from noon Friday to noon Wednesday and also had a delayed opening Thursday.

The court filing also seeks to beat back suspicions and allegations that the agency deliberately mislaid the emails in an effort to keep them hidden until later in the presidential election process where Clinton is running for the Democratic nomination.

"State has candidly acknowledged — and regrets — that it was responsible for the failure to send the documents for consultation and that it was simply a mistake that occurred during the enormous undertaking of reviewing and processing the entire Clinton email collection in a compressed time frame," the lawyers wrote.

State also disputed the notion that the remaining emails are more "controversial" than earlier ones, although it acknowledged they did require more consultation.

State has said it still expects to release some Clinton emails Friday, but only a fraction of the roughly 9,000 remaining pages.

A lawyer for the Vice News reporter who sued for the emails and other records under the Freedom of Information Act said the delays deprive voters of information as they make critical decisions.

"Even a week’s delay, let alone a month’s, will leave tens of thousands of voters in the dark," said Ryan James, an attorney for Jason Leopold. "Pundits might wonder why the administration seems willing to risk being perceived as, or accused of, giving a big middle finger to the early-voting folks in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, as well as American Samoa and the 11 other Super Tuesday states by requesting so much additional time."