WASHINGTON — (CNN) The State Department will now produce records of Hillary Clinton’s meetings as secretary of state in mid-October rather than after Election Day.
The decision, issued in response to an Associated Press public records request, concerns logs of whom she met with while serving as President Barack Obama’s top diplomat. Last week, the AP reported that a majority of the private citizens with whom Clinton met or spoke by phone during her tenure had donated to the Clinton Foundation.
The department initially told the news outlet it would not be able to produce all the records until late December, but said Thursday that it would shift its priorities away from other AP records requests and now release Clinton’s schedules by October 17.
“The court’s earlier ruling, in which the department was required to process 600 pages per month, would have resulted in the department making the final production of these schedules in December,” State spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. “The department had no objection to shifting its resources as long as its overall processing burden was not increased.”
For Clinton, Thursday’s announcement represents another political headache in the final stretch of the 2016 campaign, as she has recently fought suggestions that she traded access for donations to her family’s charity.
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said the campaign welcomed the development.
“We are glad to have schedules released as quickly as possible. It will be best for public to see the full picture, not cherrypicked subset,” Fallon tweeted.
Republicans, who have cited the Clinton Foundation in recent weeks to hammer Clinton about her transparency and honesty, had protested news of the delay.
“Voters deserve to know the truth before they cast their ballots, but once again the rigged system is rushing to protect Hillary Clinton,” Donald Trump spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement last week. “Instead of counting on her friends in the Obama administration to shield her from accountability, Hillary Clinton should demand that these public records be released before voting begins.”
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