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More of Hillary Clinton's emails could be released before Election Day. | Getty Deal nears to speed release of Hillary Clinton emails

A potential compromise is in the works that could result in more Hillary Clinton emails recovered by the FBI being made public before the election.

Last week, a judge ordered the processing under the Freedom of Information Act of a relatively meager 1,050 pages of the FBI-found emails before Election Day. Government lawyers say the FBI turned over about 5,600 work-related Clinton emails to the State Department beginning in July, although some are duplicates of records already processed and released.

During a court hearing in a separate FOIA lawsuit Monday, another judge pushed for a deal that could accelerate the release of those messages, perhaps three-fold, in advance of the Nov. 8 vote, in which Clinton is hoping to win the White House in a showdown with Donald Trump.

Acting on a case brought by Vice News journalist Jason Leopold, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras ordered the two sides to try to work out a compromise to devote more of State's resources to processing Clinton's emails in the coming weeks, rather than other records Leopold has requested.

Contreras ordered both sides to report by Wednesday whether a deal can be reached to speed review of the FBI-found Clinton emails.

Ryan James, an attorney for Leopold, said that if it was "not possible" for State to allocate more resources to the Clinton email disclosure, Leopold would be "willing to sacrifice" pages he's due of other Clinton-related records in order to get more of the emails released. About 2,200 pages of assorted records are scheduled for processing in the coming month in Leopold's case.

Speaking of the FBI-recovered emails, James said: "We believe those records are more important."

Initially, Justice Department attorney Robert Prince did not sound terribly receptive to the proposal. He that said the email-focused part of Leopold's suit against the State Department doesn't even encompass the full set of FBI-provided emails, and that Leopold previously agreed to limit the Clinton email-related portion of his suit to the roughly 54,000 pages of emails Clinton turned over on paper in December 2014.

The Vice News reporter initially submitted a very broad request for almost every Clinton-related record at State, but later agreed to narrow it to Clinton emails, as well as other records on specific topics.

But Contreras said it would be odd to penalize Leopold for not having foreseen that some emails would be obtained by the FBI.

"No one knew these documents existed ... and these documents should have been in the 55,000," the judge said.

Prince said the fact they weren't in the roughly 54,000 pages of emails Clinton turned over did not necessarily reflect any impropriety. And there might be valid reasons these emails weren't in that set, he argued.

"Just because Secretary Clinton deleted an email does not mean anything untoward happened here," Prince said, noting that federal employees are generally not obliged to save all emails, even those that are-work related.

"I'm not suggesting that," replied Contreras, who issued the original order that led to State's public release of the 54,000 Clinton emails — a process that was completed in February.

However, the judge said he believed both sides could work out a compromise that would reallocate some of State's resources to the Clinton email project.

"It seems to me that if the two of you actually spoke to each other, you could reach some agreement," Contreras said. "I'm not going to order that everything be produced by Election Day. That's just impossible."

The judge called a recess in the hearing and ordered the two sides to confer about a possible arrangement. After a half-hour break, Prince returned to the courtroom shortly before noon to say that Justice Department and State Department lawyers handling the case were open to a reallocation of resources but needed approval from Eric Stein, a State Department FOIA official who could not immediately be reached.

The potential deal was discussed again Monday afternoon during a separate hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss, who is overseeing a suit Leopold filed against the FBI for certain records related to the Clinton email probe.

James, who appeared by phone at both hearings, referred at one point to a "tentative agreement" that he said would result in processing an additional 2,200 pages of Clinton emails for release by Oct. 31. That would be on top of the earlier order — issued in a case brought by the conservative group Judicial Watch — that State process 350 pages every two weeks, leading to releases on Oct. 7, Oct. 21 and Nov. 4.

But Justice Department lawyer Jennie Kneedler said James was overstating how close the parties were to a deal.

"It's under consideration. I wouldn't describe it as a tentative agreement," Kneedler said. She also suggested, as Prince did at the earlier hearing, that with various records at various stages of the review process, suspending work on one set of records and moving people to another might not yield as many records as quickly as James was suggesting.

"As I'm sure your honor could appreciate, it's not a simple transfer for resources," Kneedler told Moss.

Kneedler was unable to tell Moss where the FBI got the additional Clinton emails, although the Justice Department lawyer suggested some may have come from an email account longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin had on Clinton's server.

The hearing before Moss proceeded on the assumption that if State determines the Clinton emails are entirely personal, they won't even be processed for release. However, since the records were obtained by the FBI in a criminal investigation, they could be FBI records even if not considered part of State's official files. That could result in partial release of some messages that are not work-related, even if State isn't processing them right now.

During the morning hearing, Leopold's lawyer mounted a last-minute bid to try to get any additional emails that may be released sent "directly" to the Vice News reporter through his attorney, apparently in lieu of them being made public on State's website. The request echoed a debate among transparency advocates about whether records the government discloses should be immediately released to all via the Internet, or sent to the requester some time before everyone else gets them.

Contreras turned down James' request that Leopold have first dibs on any additional emails.

"I'm happy with them posting it on the website. FOIA is about informing the public what their government is up to and that means everybody," the judge said.

The issue did not arise before Moss, with all parties saying they expected any additional Clinton emails to be posted on State's website.

UPDATE (Monday: 4 p.m.): This post has been updated with details of the afternoon hearing.