The State Department has released about 85% of Clinton’s official emails to date, but numerous most sensitive emails – those that require addition review by the intelligence community and other government agencies – are expected to be in the remaining tranche.
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A USA government official told Fox News that at least 12 of the accounts belonged to Hillary Clinton’s aides.
News of the subpoena further undercuts the Democrat candidate’s repeated claims that she never violated a subsection of the Espionage Act related to “gross negligence” in handling government documents during her time as President Obama’s secretary of state.
At a court hearing in the case Tuesday, Contreras took the State Department to task for missing its January 29 production deadline, saying he agreed that there is a compelling public interest in Clinton’s emails.
Under Contreras’ new guidelines, the State Department by Wednesday must explain why it can not immediately post online a portion of the remaining e-mails that have already been through all the security reviews.
Clinton has landed in controversy over the past year and had difficulty explaining her use of a private email server instead of a State Department email address.
Clinton was asked about the FBI investigation at a debate last week and said she was “100 percent confident” nothing would come of it. Early in the hearing Contreras was prepared to ask the State Department to post the documents that were past the final review process by Friday, but Prince said this would be unrealistic. The State Department and representatives of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Huma Abedin did not comment for the report. She joined its board after leaving office in February 2013 and helped run it until launching her White House bid in April.
Clinton, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, had used her personal email for doing government business – something she apologized for while on the campaign trail as Republicans pounced on the admission.
Both Clintons have denied accusations of wrongdoing.
The potential consequences of the IG investigation are unclear.
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IG inquiries may result in criminal charges, but the tools at investigators’ disposal are limited. Unlike federal prosecutors, inspectors general have the authority to subpoena documents without seeking approval from a grand jury or a judge. Last year, the watchdog found that she was overpaid almost $10,000 and violated her sick leave and vacation policies, a discovery that Abedin and her attorneys have fought. The Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee are conducting investigations of their own.
