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The FBI has declined to give the State Department any kind of progress report on its efforts to recover documents from Hillary Clinton's private email server.

In fact, the FBI declines even to tell the State Department what it has already admitted publicly — that it's doing an investigation.

“At this time, consistent with long-standing Department of Justice and FBI policy, we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any ongoing investigation, nor are we in a position to provide additional information at this time," the FBI told the State Department in a letter dated today, according to a court filing in one of the email FOIA cases.

A federal just last month ordered the State Department to ask the FBI for information about what investigators found on Hillary Clinton's e-mail server.

The order involves a side issue in the email controversy — a Freedom of Information Act inquiry about an employment arrangement that allowed top Clinton aide Huma Abedin to do outside consulting while working at the State Department. Clinton is a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.

Judge Emmet Sullivan directed the State Department to ask for a response from the FBI about whether investigators find anything on the Clinton email server or the thumb drives related to Abedin's work arrangement.