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State said it estimated that the RNC's initial requests would have required processing approximately 1.5 million pages of records. | AP Photo State Department rejects GOP request for trove of Clinton aides' emails

The State Department is seeking to reject demands from the Republican Party that the diplomatic agency turn over hundreds of thousands of emails sent or received by several former aides to Hillary Clinton.

Justice Department lawyers representing State said in a court filing Wednesday night that complying with the Republican National Committee's Freedom of Information Act request "would impose an unreasonable burden on the agency."

"FOIA requests are not supposed to be labored over for generations," Justice Department lawyers wrote.

The literary turn of phrase is likely to prompt some mockery from FOIA requesters who've waited years for State to respond to much narrower requests than the GOP's and faced such waits long before the agency was deluged with requests prompted by the disclosure of Clinton's exclusive use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.

State said it estimated that the RNC's initial requests for years of emails on the accounts of Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills, Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan and computer technician Bryan Pagliano would have required processing approximately 1.5 million pages of records.

"It would take the State Department decades to process (i.e., review, redact, and, if necessary refer to other agencies for their review) that many pages of records," the government's filing said.

During negotiations over the requests, the RNC proposed various search terms for three of the accounts and agreed to drop the Sullivan request for now. However, State said the proposal cut the number of potentially responsive pages to only about 750,000.

State said RNC didn't provide search terms for Pagliano's emails. The agency said a compilation of accounts of people who corresponded with Pagliano totals about 627,000 pages, although it's unclear how many of those emails actually involve the tech aide.

"It would take the Department approximately 104 years to process the documents potentially responsive to the Pagliano request," Justice Department lawyers wrote.

The RNC's lawsuit for the Clinton aides' emails is before U.S. District Court Judge Amy Jackson, who will have to decide whether to excuse State from complying with the GOP requests.

Another Judge Jackson, Ketanji Jackson, ruled in a separate RNC FOIA suit Wednesday that the U.S. Agency for International Development will have to process part of a much smaller batch of emails involving some Clinton aides and Clinton-related Web domains by July and will also have to propose a date to finish the job.

Both Judges Jackson were appointed by President Barack Obama.