After a judicial spanking earlier this week, the State Department said it has discovered it has “additional resources” that can speed up release of more than 500 pages of former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s emails, and the department can post them Saturday.
The new resources are surprising given that several federal judges had pushed the department for months to find ways to speed up production, but the administration repeatedly pushed back, saying it was working as fast as possible, including nights and weekends, and couldn’t do any better.
In a filing late Wednesday, however, Eric F. Stein, the employee overseeing the emails, said were “additional resources, of which I was unaware” just a few days ago.
“Based on these changed circumstances, State now anticipates making the interim production of the documents discussed during the hearing on Saturday, February 13, 2016, via a posting on its FOIA website,” Mr. Stein told the court.
His discovery came just a day after Judge Rudolph Contreras said the government was taking an “unreasonably long” time processing the messages.
All of Mrs. Clinton’s messages were to have been released by Jan. 29, or before the first votes were cast in the presidential primaries. But the State Department has pushed its release back a month, to Feb. 29, or well after the first four states vote — opening the Obama administration up to charges that it’s trying to assist Mrs. Clinton’s presidential bid.
Some 3,700 emails, spanning 5,500 pages, are still to be released. About 14 percent of those will now come on Saturday, if the State Department lives up to its new goal.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.