Huma Abedin, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s close personal aide, has turned over 6,714 emails, and 2,533 pages of documents in printed and electronic form, the Obama administration said in a court filing late Friday.
Most of those materials were finally turned over Sept. 1, and though the majority came in electronic form already, they will still need to be converted to a searchable format, the State Department said. The department said it will take 60 days to convert the messages, process them and begin releasing responsive documents.
Still, that’s a far better situation than the 55,000 pages of emails Mrs. Clinton turned over in December, which took five months for the government to scan in, and which will take through January for them all to be released.
In other developments Friday, the Obama administration lost its bids to halt other Clinton email cases, with Judge Emmet G. Sullivan denying requests to stay searches in three separate cases.
Facing more than 30 open-records cases seeking emails from Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Abedin and other top aides Cheryl Mills, Philippe Reines and Jacob Sullivan, the Justice Department has asked that most of those searches be halted and that the matter be coordinated by a single judge.
But Judge Sullivan said the cases are making headway, and he doesn’t see a need to halt them.
“Neither judicial economy nor the interests of justice will be served by staying this matter at this time,” he wrote in an order in one of the three cases.
So far, the Justice Department has not had great success. Only one judge has granted a stay, while Judge Sullivan and Judge Richard J. Leon have denied stays, and another put held the request for a stay in abeyance.
Earlier Friday the Justice Department told yet another judge that there are the equivalent of 22 full-time employees at the State Department working to process emails from Mrs. Clinton and her aides.
A lawyer said, however, that only the Clinton messages will be released in full. The emails sent or received by the aides will be searched in response to open-records requests, but the entire sets won’t be released.
Mr. Reines turned over 20 boxes of documents, which amounts to more in volume than the 55,000 pages Mrs. Clinton turned over, Justice Department lawyer Robert J. Prince told Judge Rudolph Contreras. Mr. Prince didn’t know the extent of Ms. Mills’ emails.
The emails are ones sent from personal accounts or, reportedly in some cases, accounts attached to Mrs. Clinton’s email server. Like Mrs. Clinton, the aides apparently took the messages with them when they left government service, and are returning them now at the request of the Obama administration.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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