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U.S. NEWS A5
Thursday 10 September
US turns over fewer Clinton-related emails than ordered
STEPHEN BRAUN stint under the U.S. Freedom Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the Brookings Institution in
Associated Press of Information Act.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The The department instead Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015. Clinton issued a hardline warning to Iran on Wednesday
State Department has provided only five docu-
failed to deliver nearly 70 ments, two of them partially that as president she would “not hesitate” to take military action to stop the country from
pages of documents to censored. A State Depart-
The Associated Press, as ment official writing for acquiring nuclear weapons. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
instructed by a federal John Hackett, the depart-
judge, about Democratic ment’s director of informa-
presidential candidate Hill- tion programs and services,
ary Rodham Clinton’s hir- said further searches were
ing of longtime aide Huma still ongoing in agency of-
Abedin as a special gov- fices. The government did
ernment contract staffer. not say whether it was also
The department provided searching the files of former
only seven pages of emails. Clinton aides, as the AP
Meanwhile, government had requested.
lawyers asked another fed- A State Department
eral judge to delay releas- spokesman said the agen-
ing thousands of pages of cy doesn’t comment on
documents from Clinton’s cases in ongoing litigation,
tenure as secretary of state even though it had direct-
until January 2016. ed questions from the AP to
The State Department’s a Justice Department law-
request to delay until next yer, who did not respond
year its release emails and to phone calls or emails
other Clinton-related docu- from an AP reporter and an
ments sought by news me- AP lawyer. Leon in August
dia and legal and political gave the State Department
organizations raised the 30 days to produce records
prospect that significant in- regarding Abedin, which
formation about Clinton’s he noted “have been esti-
tenure as secretary of state mated to be approximate-
might not surface until after ly 68 pages in total.” Leon
crucial early Democratic ordered the agency to
Party presidential nomina- deliver thousands of pages
tion contests in the states of more between this month
Iowa and New Hampshire. and March 2016 that in-
Impatient with years of clude Clinton’s schedules,
previous delays from the the department’s oversight
State Department over re- of military contractor BAE
quests by the AP for emails Systems and emailed refer-
and documents from Clin- ences to surveillance and
ton and several of her top counterterrorism programs.
aides, U.S. District Court In a filing in a separate court
Judge Richard Leon set a case against the State De-
strict schedule for release partment, government
of the material last month lawyers cautioned that the
that included an order to agency’s resources for pro-
deliver to the AP an esti- cessing requests for Clinton-
mated 68 pages of docu- related files “are strained to
ments related to Abedin the limit.” Government law-
by Tuesday. The AP sued yers said more than 16,500
the State Department last new requests for Clinton-
March because of delays related files have been
stretching back to 2013 filed since September 2014
in the news agency’s ef- and there are now 87 court
forts to obtain documents challenges pending in fed-
about Clinton’s diplomatic eral courts.q
