Seven months after a US federal judge ordered the State Department to begin releasing monthly batches of the detailed daily schedules showing meetings by Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, the government now says it won't finish the job before Election Day.
The department has so far released about half of the schedules. Its lawyers said in a phone conference with the Associated Press' lawyers that the department now expects to release the last of the detailed schedules around December 30, weeks before the next president is inaugurated.
The AP's lawyers late on Friday formally asked the State Department to hasten that effort so that the department could provide all Clinton's minute-by-minute schedules by October 15. The agency did not immediately respond.
The schedules drew new attention this week after the AP analysed the ones released so far. The news agency found that more than half the people outside the government who met or spoke by telephone with Clinton while she was secretary of state had given money - either personally or through companies or groups - to the Clinton Foundation. The AP's analysis focused on people with private interests and excluded her meetings or calls with US federal employees or foreign government representatives.
The AP's reporting was based on official calendars covering Clinton's entire term plus the more-detailed daily schedules covering roughly half her time as secretary of state.
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The AP first asked for Clinton's calendars in 2010 and again in 2013. It then sued the State Department in federal court to obtain the detailed schedules, and the department so far has provided about half of them under court order.
With the foundation drawing continued attention, Clinton promised on Friday to put in place additional safeguards to prevent conflicts of interest with the charity should she win the White House.
The foundation issue, along with continued focus on her use of a private email server, has dogged Clinton politically throughout the week, drawing strong criticism from opponent Donald Trump.
Trump spokesman Jason Miller released a statement on Friday night saying: ``It is unacceptable that the State Department is now refusing to release her official schedule before the election in full. Voters deserve to know the truth before they cast their ballots.''
Former president Bill Clinton said last week that if she is elected president, the foundation will no longer accept foreign or corporate donations.
The State Department is now estimating there are about 2,700 pages of schedules left. Under its process, it is reviewing and censoring them page-by-page to remove personal details such as private phone numbers or email addresses. In some cases it has censored names of people who met privately with Clinton or the subjects they discussed.
