Via Twitter, Clinton Says She Wants Emails Released

Hillary Clinton has asked the State Department to release emails from her time as secretary of State, she announced late Wednesday night via Twitter.

"I want the public to see my email," Clinton tweeted.

I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 5, 2015

The amount and content of the emails Clinton would like released was not immediately clear. It is also unclear how long it will take the State Department to review and catalogue the email trove it has received. Nor is it possible at the moment to know what Clinton emails have not yet been turned over to the State Department, or even if they will be.

The main issue for Clinton at the moment is stopping the political feeding frenzy. The email controversy has rekindled questions about her actions as secretary of State, refueled congressional interest in investigating the Benghazi attacks, and even helped puncture the idea that she is the inevitable Democratic presidential candidate.

Clinton has been under fire from across the political spectrum since The New York Times reported Monday night that she had exclusively used a private email account for official government business. Wednesday morning, the Associated Press reported that Clinton had a so-called homebrew email server at her Chappaqua, N.Y., home.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats have not been rushing to Clinton's defense. Multiple high-profile liberal lawmakers pointedly avoided answering questions about the emails.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, say they want to see what Clinton was saying about the Keystone XL pipeline while she was secretary of State. Greens have speculated that the private correspondence could have been used to cover up a conflict of interest during Clinton's review of the project.

The stories have raised questions about both the security of the secretary of State's emails and how completely they have been archived.

"The task of keeping a mail-server secure isn't one even the average [system administrator] is up to. I'd be shocked if her server was even remotely secure," said Nate Cardozo, a staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Clinton's decision to forgo the State Department's servers is inexplicable and inexcusable."

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf would not set a timetable for reviewing the emails.

"The State Department will review for public release the emails provided by Secretary Clinton to the department, using a normal process that guides such releases," Harf said in a statement. "We will undertake this review as quickly as possible; given the sheer volume of the document set, this review will take some time to complete."

Earlier Wednesday, the House committee investigating the attacks in Benghazi issued subpoenas for Clinton's emails related to the incident in Libya.