By Katie Bo Williams - 08-22-16 11:08 AM EDT
The FBI has uncovered almost 15,000 previously undisclosed documents sent directly to or from Hillary Clinton, State Department lawyers confirmed before a federal judge on Monday.
The documents were found during the course of the FBI's investigation into the Democratic presidential nominee's use of a personal email server during her time as secretary of State. The number is almost 50 percent more than the 30,000 work-related documents that Clinton's lawyers turned over to the State Department in 2014.
The agency has pledged to release the approximately 14,900 documents and State Department lawyers told District Judge James E. Boasberg on Monday that the agency is "prioritizing" the appraisal of the new emails.
But it remains unsettled whether the full set will be out before the presidential election on Nov. 8. Lawyers for the conservative watchdog group that has demanded the release have accused the agency of slow-walking the production.
"FBI found almost 15,000 new Clinton documents. When will State release them?" Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton tweeted Monday morning.
The agency is currently assessing whether any of the new documents - which the FBI turned over to State following the close of its investigation - are of a personal nature or duplicates of previously released emails. Following that assessment, it is reviewing on a rolling basis whether the pages are subject to federal records laws.
The first stage of the process is slated to be completed within a month - a target State Department lawyer Lisa Olsen called "extraordinarily ambitious."
But it is the second part of the review process that will have a more direct impact on when the documents will be made publicly available. State Department lawyers said Monday that they expect the agency to begin releasing the documents in batches every week beginning Oct. 14.
Boasberg ordered the agency to provide a status update on Sept. 22 on how many of the documents it has reviewed to determine whether they may be produced under a Freedom of Information Act request.
It is unclear whether the 14,900 emails include any of the deleted work-related emails that the FBI was able to reconstruct during its investigation. FBI Director James B. Comey said in his summary of the investigation's fndings that "several thousand" of the 30,000 emails Clinton's lawyers deleted were work-related.
The Clinton campaign says it does not to know the content of the newly-uncovered emails.
"As we have always said, Hillary Clinton provided the State Department with all the work-related emails she had in her possession in 2014," spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement. "We are not sure what additional materials the Justice Department may have located, but if the State Department determines any of them to be work-related, then obviously we support those documents being released publicly as well."
--Updated 4:57 p.m.
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