State Department officials are asking for an additional month to complete a review of the final batch of Hillary Clinton’s private emails for release.
In court documents filed Friday, the State Department said it unintentionally “overlooked” the need to send a number of Clinton’s emails to other agencies for review and would need more time to complete those “consultations.”
However, the agency said the process of asking other agencies to look over more than 7,000 remaining pages of emails will be “interupted by the storm” and delayed the release of the rest of the emails until Feb. 29, a full month after a federal judge originally ordered the emails to have been posted online.
The State Department is releasing all 55,000 pages of Clinton’s emails through a Freedom of Information Act filed by Jason Leopold of Vice News. Leopold’s attorney said Friday he “vigorously opposes” the requested delay.
If the U.S. District Court grants the State Department’s request, the release of the final trove of emails will come after the first wave of Democratic primaries in February.
The agency has been forced to consult with several intelligence agencies over a significant number of emails that were found to contain classified information. State’s request Friday came amid scrutiny over the discovery of information potentially classified above “top secret” among Clinton’s records.
