Washington, Aug 23
The FBI has discovered almost 15,000 unrevealed documents linked to the e-mail scandal surrounding Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, US media reports said on Monday.
The documents were found during the FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private e-mail server while she was Secretary of State between 2009 and 2013, Efe news reported.
Some 30,000 documents linked to the scandal were already turned over by Clinton's attorneys to the Department of State in 2014.
The State Department has promised to publish the documents and on Monday assured federal Judge James E. Boasberg, who is hearing the case, that the department is "giving priority" to reviewing the new e-mail messages.
However, it is still not known if the e-mails will be published before the Nov 8 election, in which the former first lady is contesting against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The e-mail controversy erupted in early 2015, when US media revealed that during her four years heading the State Department, Clinton always used a personal -- and not an official -- account for her communications, including a private server, Efe news added.
Clinton acknowledged at the time that it would have been "smarter" to use an official account and handed over for publication 55,000 pages of e-mails from her tenure at the State Department, but the case raised questions about whether classified government information was improperly handled on her personal account.
The State Department identified around 2,100 e-mails from Clinton's server as confidential, although it said that many of them were not considered classified at the time they were sent, but had been designated as such during the review.
The scandal also brought accusations from Republican lawmakers about Clinton's handling of the 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which then-Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other US government officials died.
Several months ago, Clinton appeared before Congress for more than 11 hours to explain what occurred during that attack, and in early July the lawmakers' final report on the incident was made public, a report that concluded that no evidence incriminating her had been found.
Thus, later in July the FBI recommended to the Department of Justice that no charges be filed against the Democratic candidate after the e-mail investigation, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch followed that advice and closed the case.
Trump calls for immediate closure of 'corrupt' Clinton Foundation
US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday called for the immediate closure of the Clinton Foundation, which he said is "the most corrupt enterprise in political history".
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton "is the defender of the corrupt and rigged status quo", declared Trump in a communique released by his campaign.
She and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, "have spent decades as insiders lining their own pockets and taking care of donors instead of the American people", Efe news quoted Trump as saying in the statement.
"It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history. What they were doing during Crooked Hillary's time as Secretary of State was wrong then, and it is wrong now. It must be shut down immediately," the magnate added.
The institution, the full name of which is the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, has collected about $2 billion in donations over the past two decades, Efe news reported.
Although she has denied it, several journalistic investigations have found that the former first lady could have made decisions that were influenced by foreign donations to the Foundation when she was Secretary of State between 2009 and 2013.
Last week, The Washington Post published an editorial in which it criticised the close connections between the Foundation and the State Department when Clinton was the top US diplomat.
Last Friday, the Foundation announced it will make several key operational changes if Clinton wins the presidency in November, including refusing to accept donations from abroad or from corporations.
In addition, whether she wins or loses in November, the Foundation will stop organising the Clinton Global Initiative, the annual conference attracting heads of government, top businessmen, donors and celebrities.
The Boston Globe said on its editorial page last week that the Foundation should shut down if Clinton is elected president.
Since its 1997 founding by Bill Clinton, the Foundation has expanded to a $2 billion charity funding healthcare, education and environmental initiatives around the world, but critics have claimed that it provided corporations and foreign interests with the chance to gain favour and influence with the Secretary of State, who many have expected might one day become president.
