Democrats brace for release of new emails

A scheduled hearing on Sept 23 will decide when to make Clinton’s documents public

A judge has ordered the US State Department to review for possible release 14,900 of Hillary Clinton’s emails and attachments that the FBI found when investigating her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

The judge also scheduled a Sept 23 hearing on when to release the emails, a deadline that raises the possibility some will become public before the Nov 8 presidential election between Democrat Clinton and her Republican rival, Donald Trump.

Questions about her email practices as secretary of state have dogged Clinton’s White House run and triggered an FBI probe that found she was “extremely careless” with sensitive information by using a private server but recommended against bringing charges.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters it was still reviewing the 14,900 documents and it was unclear how many were personal or work-related. He also said it was unclear how many may duplicate those already released but that there were “likely to be quite a few” not previously disclosed.

The department has already culled through some 30,068 of Clinton emails from her 200913 tenure as US top diplomat and released most of them, amounting to some 55,000 pages. More than 2,000 emails were found to contain classified information.

The disclosure of further emails could provide more fodder for opponents who have seized on the issue to argue that Clinton is untrustworthy.

The order on Monday by US District Court Judge James Boasberg, who is overseeing a group of lawsuits seeking to make Clinton’s emails public, came the day a conservative watchdog group made public a batch of Clinton’s emails obtained through a lawsuit.

The 14,900 documents referred to by Boasberg are believed to include emails not included among those Clinton previously turned over to the State Department after her use of a private email server and private email account became public. The US State Department has already reviewed 30,068 emails from her 2009-13 tenure and released most of them, amounting to 55,000 pages.

Powell’s memo

Former secretary of state Colin Powell dismissed reports over the weekend that Clinton told federal investigators that it was at his suggestion that she used a personal email account.

Powell, who served as the nation’s top diplomat during 2001-05 under Republican president George W. Bush, told People magazine that while he did send Clinton a memo about his own email practices, Clinton had already chosen to use personal email rather than a government account while she had the job.

“Her people have been trying to pin it on me . ... The truth is, she was using (the private email server) for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did,” Powell told People on Saturday.

The New York Times reported last week that Clinton told federal investigators that Powell had suggested she use personal email for unclassified email when the two spoke over dinner. The conversation occurred “in the early months” of Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, the Times said, citing a forthcoming book by journalist Joe Conason that first reported the dinner exchange.

Representatives for Powell, in a separate statement to NBC News, said he had no recollection of the conversation with Clinton.

Her people have been trying to pin it on me . ... The truth is, she was using (the private email server) for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did.” Colin Powell, former US secretary of state