Latest batch of Clinton emails discuss iPad, 'vast right wing conspiracy,' gefilte fish

On Monday night, at 9 p.m. on the East Coast, the State Department released 7,121 new pages of emails from Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, just meeting a court-ordered deadline to release a certain number each month. The emails were sent and saved on a private server at the Clinton residence in New York. Reporters are digging through the new dump, covering parts of 2009 and 2010, to find anything beyond mundane scheduling requests, and this early look from Politico has a few tidbits.

First, close friend Sid Blumenthal, who did not work for the State Department at the time, appears to be Clinton's version of that friend who sends you lots of articles on Facebook or over email. In one email chain with the subject line "H: Yes, there is a vast right wing conspiracy. Sid," Blumenthal pasted articles from Israeli newspaper Haaretz on the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and a New Yorker article on Charles and David Koch and their support for the Tea Party. To the long New Yorker article, Clinton replied: "Ah, a little lite vacation reading!"

Also, it appears Clinton didn't know how to use an iPad before June 2010. "That is exciting news — do you think you can teach me to use it on the flight to Kyev next week?" Clinton asked top aide Philippe Reines when he advised her that her "hPad" had arrived. In another email to top advisers in March 2010, Clinton used the subject line "Gefilte fish," with the email body simply asking: "Where are we on this?"

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Of the 4,368 emails released, 125 had been retroactively deemed classified, all at the lowest level, "Confidential," the State Department said. Parts of those emails were blacked out. On Monday, State Department spokesman John Kirby apologized to reporters for the late-night email dump, explaining that the department was straining to meet the release schedule set by a judge. He promised the department will try to get the next batch out earlier in the day on Sept. 30.