The State Department is reviewing about 15,000 undisclosed emails sent from a private email server used by Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state. The next batch of emails will come out before election day.
The State Department will review the new emails provided by the FBI and then decide which ones can be released—that is, which are deemed to have been work-related—and whether any information should be withheld or redacted for security reasons, DPA reported. It must also determine which of the new emails uncovered by FBI analysts are different from the thousands of emails previously released by the department.
Clinton, who faces Republican Donald Trump in the presidential election on November 8, has been dogged for over a year by questions regarding her use of a private email account and a personal computer server while she was secretary of state from 2009-13, during President Barack Obama’s first term.
The emails were recovered as part of the FBI’s investigation into the handling of sensitive information that passed through Clinton’s private home server during her time as secretary of state, a probe that is now closed, with Clinton cleared of criminal wrong last month. Clinton had a private email server at her home in Chappaqua, New York.
The Justice Department concluded after a lengthy investigation that there was no basis to recommend charges be brought against her. FBI Director James Comey did call her handling of the emails “extremely careless”.
Department lawyers said they anticipated releasing the first batch of the new emails in mid-October, which could prove embarrassing for the Clinton campaign as the November 8 election day approaches.
Clinton’s opponent, Donald Trump, has made much of what he calls Clinton’s untrustworthiness, and the email development comes as the conservative group Judicial Watch releases hundreds of pages of emails from Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin that it alleges show Abedin provided access to Clinton and the State Department on behalf of Clinton Foundation donors.
Former secretary of state Colin Powell has rebuffed accusations made by Clinton that he suggested she use her private email account for non-classified information and that he found using a private email account to facilitate communication within the State Department.
