Court Victory: A federal judge in JW's case ordered State Dept to speed up processing of Clinton’s emails – ordering completion of processing remaining docs by Sept. 28, 2018 & accelerating the production rate which would’ve continued til 2020 or later. https://t.co/SML77JzD7m— Judicial Watch 🔎 (@JudicialWatch) March 10, 2018
The court also ordered the State Department to identify and explain the basis for all documents withheld in full from both the 55,000 pages of emails turned over by Clinton and the 72,000 pages of records recovered by the FBI which have been processed thus far by April 6, 2018.
“How ironic it is that the Trump State Department had to be ordered by a federal court to stop slow-rolling the release of Clinton emails,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act lawsuits – not Congress or the media – uncovered Clinton’s email cover-up and related crimes. Now it is up to the Justice Department to finally follow up with an honest and independent investigation.”
In November 2016, Judge Boasberg ordered the State Department to process no less than 500 pages a month of records responsive to Judicial Watch’s request. The following year, in October 2017, Judicial Watch asked the court to increase the State Department’s processing requirement noting that under its current pace of production, the Clinton emails would not be completely released until at least 2020. At the October 2017 hearing, the State Department reported to the court that they were revamping their FOIA processing and reallocating resources. Judge Boasberg then issued an order instructing the State Department to explain “how its anticipated increase in resources will affect processing of records in this case …”
In a related case, Judicial Watch found at least 18 classified emails in 806 documents recently produced by the State Department from the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s elicit email system. The emails were found on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, who is the husband of former Clinton aide Huma Abedin.