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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Clinton Email Case to Go Before Judge Thursday

WASHINGTON (CN) - A federal judge will hold a hearing Thursday to weigh the U.S. State Department's satisfaction of demands for access to Hillary Clinton's emails.

Judicial Watch filed the suit at issue - one of 18 it has pending against the agency - after the department denied its March request under the Freedom of Information Act for information about Clinton's use of private email to discuss the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya that killed ambassador Christopher Stevens.

The State Department ultimately struck a deal with Judicial Watch, a conservative group that advocates for open government, to release the documents on a rolling basis by Sept.30.

A July 31 order from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta notes that the department must file a new report after that date, detailing what documents remain to be released.

The documents the State Department will hand over to Judicial Watch include communications between members of Congress, their staffs and officials, and other employees of the State Department, that mention Clinton's use of a personal email account, according to the report.

Representatives for the State Department maintain, however, that it would be unreasonable to impose a deadline for the release of 600 emails from Clinton's personal accounts that Judicial Watch also seeks.

The department says its obligation under another court order is already taxing the resources it puts toward Freedom of Information Act compliance, adding that a new deadline would have a "substantial, detrimental impact" on its efforts to comply.

Judicial Watch spokeswoman Jill Farrell said the pronouncement leaves much to be desired. "There's no telling what to expect out of them really," Farrell said.

Farrell also could not say how many documents her organization expected to receive from the Department of State.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment about the documents it would turn over under the order and agreement.

Clinton handed over 55,000 pages of email to the State Department in December 2014, and the agency published a sampling of her personal correspondence online in July.

The Washington Times reported Monday that the department has flagged more than 300 emails from Clinton's personal email account as containing potentially classified material.

NBC reported Wednesday the FBI hopes to recover some information from Clinton's email server despite signs someone had attempted to wipe it clean. The presidential frontrunner announced last week she would turn over a flash drive containing the emails to the Department of Justice.

An FBI investigation into the security of Clinton's private email server began earlier this month, the Washington Post reported.

Clinton refused to say whether she wiped the server in a press conference Tuesday. "Like, with a cloth or something?" she joked in response to a reporter's query.

The former secretary of state under President Barack Obama will testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Oct. 22.

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