Clinton's emails released

The State Department has released roughly 3,000 pages of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton's correspondence from 2009, her first year as the nation's top diplomat, on Tuesday night.

The emails, covering March through December of that year, were posted online Tuesday evening, as part of a court mandate that the agency release batches of Clinton's private correspondence from her time as secretary of state every 30 days starting June 30.

Clinton's emails have become a major issue early in her presidential campaign, as Republicans accuse her of using a private account rather than the standard government address to avoid public scrutiny of her correspondence.

As the controversy has continued, Clinton has seen ratings of her character and trustworthiness drop in polling.

The monthly releases all but guarantee a slow drip of revelations from the emails throughout Clinton's primary campaign, complicating her efforts to put the issue to rest.

The goal is for the department to publicly unveil 55,000 pages of her emails by Jan 29, 2016 — just three days before Iowa caucus-goers will cast the first votes in the Democratic primary contest.

Clinton has said she wants the department to release the emails as soon as possible.

“There's been nothing but nearly nonstop work on this” since the last group of emails was released, State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters Tuesday at a briefing in which he acknowledged the inconvenient timing.