State department lawyers say they expect to make nearly 15,000 emails public in batches starting three weeks before election

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Nearly 15,000 emails recovered by the FBI from the private server used by Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state are set to be made public just before the presidential election in November, it emerged in court on Monday.

Judge orders Clinton to answer email server questions from Judicial Watch Read more

The state department said it was reviewing 14,900 documents that came to light in the now-closed investigation into the handling of sensitive information that flowed through the server in question. That is a major addition to the 30,000 emails that Clinton’s lawyers considered work-related and returned to the department in December 2014.

The FBI cleared Clinton of criminal conduct but found her to have have been “extremely careless”, and the saga continues to dog her. On 5 August the FBI completed a transfer of several thousand previously undisclosed work-related emails for the state department to review and publish.



Responding to the news, the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, said Clinton “seems incapable of telling the truth”.

State lawyers told federal judge James Boasberg on Monday they expected to release the emails in batches on 14, 21 and 28 October and 4 November. The election, against Republican nominee Donald Trump, takes place on 8 November.

Boasberg ordered that the department should aim for a more ambitious deadline. The judge set another hearing for 22 September, so progress can be reviewed.

Tom Fitton, president of the conservative legal group Judicial Watch, which brought the case under a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request, tweeted: “FBI found almost 15,000 new Clinton documents. When will state release them?”

Another federal judge, Emmet Sullivan, last week ordered Clinton to answer written questions from Judicial Watch. Her answers are not due until after the presidential election.

The state department claims it is “prioritizing” the appraisal of the new batch of emails while assessing how many are related to government business and how many are personal. Lawyer Lisa Olson told the court: “We are aiming to complete the appraisal by the first week of October.” She described the target as “extraordinarily ambitious”.

The 14,900 documents are contained on the first of seven computer disks. The number of documents on all such disks is unknown but according to Olson it runs to “tens of thousands”. Boasberg ordered that the department should concentrate on the first disk for now.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in May 2015, after disclosures that Clinton had exclusively used a personal email server while secretary from 2009 to 2013.

Following the court hearing, Priebus said: “Hillary Clinton seems incapable of telling the truth. Clinton’s pattern of serial dishonesty is completely unacceptable for a candidate seeking the nation’s highest office, and her refusal to tell the truth and own up to her poor judgment is a preview of how she would conduct herself if elected president.

“Even worse, this news comes on the heels of the Clinton camp falsely trying to pin her email woes on Colin Powell, raising serious questions about whether she lied to the FBI.”

Former secretary of state Colin Powell has pushed back against Clinton’s claim, first reported in the New York Times, that he advised her to use a private email account.

He told People magazine: “Her people have been trying to pin it on me. The truth is, she was using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did.”

Powell told NBC News last week he sent a memo to Clinton “describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the state department”.

The Times said its report was based on a leak by Congress of notes from a classified interview.

At a White House press briefing, press secretary Josh Earnest said: “Like the president, I don’t have any insight into any conversations that may have taken place between Secretary Clinton and General Powell, so I’m afraid I can’t shed any light on that for you.”

Priebus added: “The process for reviewing these emails needs to be expedited, public disclosure should begin before early voting starts, and the emails in question should be released in full before election day.”

A Clinton spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.