WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has ordered the State Department to speed up the release of documents related to former Secretary Hillary Clinton's decision to allow a foreign defense contractor that admitted criminal wrongdoing to continue doing business with the Pentagon.
The Associated Press filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act in 2013 for emails and memos involving a U.S. subsidiary of the British aerospace giant BAE Systems. AP sued after the State Department failed to provide the requested public records.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon on Wednesday told the government that the documents must be provided to AP before the November election. The department estimates it will have to sort through at least 10,000 pages. Only a fraction of them have been released so far, most heavily censored.