Hillary Clinton Email Update: Amid Delays And Judge Demands, State Department To Release 550 Messages

The U.S. Department of State said Wednesday in a court document that it could post 550 newly approved Hillary Clinton emails this weekend as it continues to work toward its revised Feb. 29 deadline for releasing the former secretary of state's electronic messages sent over her private server. This would be about 14 percent of the 3,700 messages yet to be published, Politico reported.

"The State Department team working on the Clinton email project has made significant progress on the documents that are available for an interim production," official Eric Stein wrote in the filing. He later added: "Moreover, additional resources added to an IT contract have also allowed State to increase the speed at which the work for the interim production can be done."

Stein was responding to demands made Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras. Contreras initially set the next monthly deadline for the department to release Clinton emails at Jan. 29 after the politician was discovered to have used a private email server during her time in office, according to the Hill.

But the department requested an extension due to issues with interagency review and a blizzard in January. Contreras called out the department on this Tuesday, arguing that the process appeared to be taking an "unreasonably long period of time" and demanding to know why emails that had already been OK'd couldn't be posted on the Freedom of Information Act website by Feb. 18.

Stein acquiesced in his filing and indicated that the rest of the pages would be posted by Feb. 29 — which CNN noted is the day before the crucial Super Tuesday primaries. As of Thursday morning, Clinton was leading the Democratic race with 50 percent support nationally. Her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, had about 37 percent, according to the HuffPost Pollster.