My Judicial Watch attorney colleagues appeared in federal court Monday for a hearing into how quickly Judicial Watch and the American people may see the Hillary Clinton emails recovered by the FBI that Clinton deleted or otherwise did not turn over to the State Department.

The hearing in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit before U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00687)) seeking “any and all emails sent or received by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in her official capacity as Secretary of State during her tenure as Secretary of State.”

The timeframe for this request is February 2, 2009, to January 31, 2013.

The State Department recently agreed to search and produce to Judicial Watch all responsive, non-exempt emails sent or received by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that were uncovered by the FBI in its investigation of Clinton and her use of off-grid email system.

In fact, the State Department Monday confirmed that the FBI discovered 15,100 new Clinton emails. In late October, Judge Boasberg ordered the State Department to report to the court the volume of records from disk one (of seven at issue) that it has reviewed and be prepared to commit to a production schedule for Monday’s hearing.

The hearing resulted in a decision by Judge James Boasberg ordering the Department of State to begin processing at least 1,050 pages of Hillary Clinton emails recovered by the FBI and provide Judicial Watch all non-exempt documents before November 4.

The State Department admitted that it has 5,600 Clinton emails recovered by the FBI that were government documents and not personal emails as she claimed. The public deserves to know what is in those emails well before November 8, and the State Department should not continue dragging its feet on producing them. The State Department admitted in court Monday that it pulled staff off of Clinton email Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The American people need to pressure State to stop sitting on these new Clinton emails for political reasons and release them as the law requires. It is outrageous the State Department has had these new Clinton emails since late July, but has only released five records.

The court ordered State to process the first 350 pages of documents by October 7, the second 350 pages by October 21, and the third by November 4. (The State Department claims a substantial number of the Clinton emails may be duplicative or near-duplicative of emails Hillary Clinton previously turned over to the State Department.)

The Wall Street Journal reported our reaction right after this morning’s hearing:

After the judge’s order, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said that “the American people could be deprived of this information at this essential time.”

“This is an absolutely corrupt process the State Department has come up with,” he said, blaming the department for the continuing delays.

But thanks only to JW, there are potentially many more emails that will be available, despite Hillary Clinton’s email delete-a-thon. We’ll be sure to update you when we finally begin receiving material next month.