State would need 75 years to compile Clinton emails

The State Department said it would take 75 years for the release of emails from top aides to Hillary Clinton from during her time as secretary of State.

Lawyers said it would take that long to compile the 450,000 pages of records from former Clinton aides Cheryl Mills, Jacob Sullivan and Patrick Kennedy, according to a court filing from last week, which was first reported by CNN.

“Given the Department’s current [Freedom of Information Act] workload and the complexity of these documents, it can process about 500 pages a month, meaning it would take approximately 16-and-2/3 years to complete the review of the Mills documents, 33-and-1/3 years to finish the review of the Sullivan documents, and 25 years to wrap up the review of the Kennedy documents — or 75 years in total,” the State Department said in the filing.

In March, the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a pair of lawsuits requesting the release of emails and records from Clinton and her top aides during and after her time at the State Department.

“The Obama administration has failed to comply with records requests in a timely manner as required by law,” Chairman Reince Priebus said in a March statement, noting that the RNC had previously requested the documents from State last October and December.

Priebus cited the Freedom of Information Act, under which the suits were filed, in calling for full disclosure of the email records.

On Monday, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau declined to comment about the RNC’s lawsuit, CNN reported, but noted that FOIA requests have increased exponentially since 2008 and explained the difficulty of keeping up with the requests with current staffing and resources.

“The volume of FOIA requests received by the Department has tripled since 2008. In fiscal year 2015 alone we received approximately 22,000 FOIA requests,” Trudeau said. “The requests are also frequently more complex and seek larger volumes of documents, requiring significantly more time, resources, and interagency coordination. While we have increased staffing for our FOIA office, our available resources are still nonetheless constrained.”