The State Department told a federal judge Friday it found 5,600 work-related emails from a disk of deleted messages recovered from the private email server Hillary Clinton used while secretary of state, raising the possibility of further disclosures on a subject that has dogged the Democrat’s presidential bid.

The judge ordered the department to produce as many as 1,050 pages of documents in three batches to the plaintiff, Judicial Watch, before the Nov. 8 presidential election, with the first production to the conservative government transparency group due Oct. 4.

A “substantial number” of the emails are duplicates or near duplicates of messages that Clinton’s lawyers handed over to the department, which have already been made public with redactions, State Department lawyers said.

The additional emails were recovered by the FBI from a private server used by Clinton while she was secretary of state. The FBI in July closed its investigation into her use of private email for official business without bringing charges against Clinton or her aides. The State Department has already released more than 30,000 messages from Clinton’s time as secretary of state.

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz on Friday said that Clinton’s former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and two other aides were given immunity from prosecution in exchange for their cooperation with the FBI investigation.

“The FBI was handing out immunity agreements like candy,” Chaffetz of Utah, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement. “I’ve lost confidence in this investigation and I question the genuine effort in which it was carried out.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, said the immunity agreement was “very limited.”

“Ms. Mills was not immunized for any statements she made to the FBI, Congress, or other investigators,” Cummings added, accusing Republicans of making “political hay.”‘
FBI spokeswoman Carol Cratty declined to comment on immunity for Mills.

(c) 2016, Bloomberg · Ben Brody