A federal judge set a preliminary schedule Monday for the release of nearly 15,000 documents between Hillary Clinton and top aides when she was the secretary of state.
The State Department was directed to assess 14,900 documents it received from the FBI as part of the investigation into Clinton’s use of her private email server while she was secretary of state, determine a plan to release the documents and report back to the court September 23.
The State Department had proposed releasing the documents the second week of October, but Judge James Boasberg of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, at the request of the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, is asking State to focus on new documents uncovered by the FBI.
It’s unclear how many of the documents are emails.
FBI Director James Comey said in July the FBI “discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014.”
“As we have previously explained, the State Department voluntarily agreed to produce to Judicial Watch any emails sent or received by Secretary Clinton in her official capacity during her tenure as Secretary of State which are contained within the material turned over by the FBI and which were not already processed for FOIA by the State Department,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday.
Meanwhile, Republicans on Capitol Hill upped the political pressure on Clinton by subpoenaing three technology companies involved in her unusual home server setup.
The subpoenas were issued after the companies did not cooperate with a House committee’s investigation into the issue, said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology Committee,
“Companies providing services to Secretary Hillary Clinton’s private email account and server are not above the law. These companies have failed to comply with our committee’s request for documents and interviews that would provide information critical to understanding Secretary Clinton’s private server and informing policy changes in how to prevent similar email arrangements in the future,” said Smith who added the information was needed to determine if Clinton’s servers met federal government security standards.
The letters to the companies containing the House subpoenas were also signed by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, who chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is looking into the issue.
“The companies have direct and unique knowledge of her private server and email account. The information being sought is a crucial step in bringing greater transparency to Secretary Clinton’s ‘extreme careless’ — I would call it dangerously reckless and grossly negligent — email practices,” said the senator who is facing a tough re-election race this year.
The subpoenas were issued to Platte River Networks in Denver, Colorado, SECNAP Network Security Corporation in Boca Raton, Florida, and Datto, Incorporated in Norwalk, Connecticut.
