State department tries to delay Clinton email release, blaming snowstorm
by Jeffrey PhillipsThe State Department on Friday sought to delay its final release of
emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server, blaming a massive
snowstorm hitting Washington as well as an internal “oversight.”
In
a court filing, the department asked a federal court to delay by a
month the Jan. 29 deadline for it to release the last batch of roughly
55,000 pages of Clinton’s emails believed to be work-related.
The
emails, thousands of which have been released on a monthly basis since
last year, have become a constant headache for Clinton’s front-runner
Democratic presidential campaign. More than 1,300 of the emails from the
former secretary of State’s private email account and server have been
classified — some at a level higher than top secret.
Roughly 82 percent of Clinton’s emails have been released, the State Department says.
However,
last week the State Department realized that more than 7,200 pages of
Clinton’s emails had not yet been sent to other agencies, which are
required to review them for potential redactions before they can be made
public.
“State overlooked some necessary consultations at a time
when the Clinton email team’s efforts were focused on processing records
that had already gone through interagency consultation in order to meet
the monthly interim goals,” the department said in Friday’s court
filing. “Thus, this oversight was not detected until the push to meet
the final deadline.”
The effort to send those pages to other
agencies was “interrupted” by the massive snowstorm expected to blanket
Washington this weekend, it added.
“[T]his storm will disrupt the
Clinton email team’s current plans to work a significant number of hours
throughout the upcoming weekend and could affect the number of
documents that can be produced on January 29, 2016,” the Obama
administration said.
Ahead of the storm, the federal government
closed its doors early on Friday, and much of official Washington has
shut down. The storm’s closures could extend into next week, potentially
delaying the department’s work even further.
The State Department
will still release some emails on Jan. 29, spokesman Mark Toner said in
a statement — but not the entire remaining tranche of emails.
“We will strive to produce as many documents as possible on that day,” Toner said.
