State Dept. Files Proposal to Release Clinton Emails

The State Department on Tuesday filed a proposal to resume the release of emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's private account next month.

The agency proposed in a court filing that it would begin posting the emails on the department's website on June 30 and continue posting them every 60 days, with the goal of making all of them publicly available by Jan. 15, 2016.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras on Tuesday posted a "proposed order" indicating he would approve the State Department schedule. The judge is considering a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Jason Leopold, a reporter for Vice News.

The State Department is still reviewing about 55,000 pages of emails from Clinton's private account. Last Friday it released nearly 300 emails relating to the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.

"The Department is keenly aware of the intense public interest in the documents and wants to get releasable materials out as soon as possible," the Justice Department lawyers representing State wrote in the filing.

"Further, the Department will continue to explore ways to devote more resources to this effort, consistent with its other obligations, to complete the review even earlier," the lawyers wrote.

Leopold's lawyer, Ryan James, said Tuesday that he intended to file a response calling on the State Department to release emails every two weeks.

"I do not believe that additional rolling productions every 60 days is sufficiently frequent to enable the public to engage in fully informed discussion about Secretary Clinton's leadership style and decisions while at the helm of the State Department," James said in a statement.