US State Dept releases final batch of Clinton emails

The U.S. State Department released the final batch of Hillary Clinton`s emails on Monday from her time at the agency`s helm, bringing the final tally of emails it says contain classified information to more than 2,000.

The department has been regularly releasing batches of her work emails in keeping with a judge`s order.

But Monday`s release of the final 1,700 messages does not end the controversy and legal uncertainty dogging Clinton`s Democratic presidential campaign since her use of a private email server came to light a year ago.

Republican rivals in the battle for the Nov. 8 election have cited the email controversy in saying Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, is unfit for the presidency.

Clinton, secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, has said her email arrangement broke no rules and that she will be vindicated.

One of the newly released exchanges shows Clinton and Jake Sullivan, one of her closest aides, in a discussion now entirely censored as "secret," the second-highest level in the government`s three-tier classification system.

The messages, sent on June 7, 2012, bear the subject "Khar - where we are" - likely a reference to Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan`s foreign minister.

The previous day, Pakistan had renewed its insistence that the United States apologize for an air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

All told, classified information appears in 2,093 of the 30,300 work emails and attachments Clinton`s lawyers returned to the department in 2014, including 261 such emails released on Monday.

That information is obscured with white boxes in the public copies.

The government forbids sending or storing classified information outside secure, government-controlled channels.

The FBI has taken the server and is investigating with U.S. Justice Department attorneys whether laws were broken through the unusual arrangement.

The State Department`s inspector general and at least two Republican-led congressional committees are conducting similar inquiries.

The State Department is investigating how much of the information in the more than 2,000 emails marked as classified was classified at the time they were sent.

The vast majority of those messages - 2,028 - contain information classified at the "confidential" level, the lowest, including scores sent by Clinton herself.

A further 65 contain "secret" information, including at least one written by Clinton, while 22 contain "top-secret" information from U.S. intelligence agencies, which have been entirely withheld from release.