U.S. State Department to release 3,000 pages of Hillary Clinton's emails

U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton attends an event in Washington, on March 23, 2015. (AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

WASHINGTON -- The State Department said it would release about 3,000 pages of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton's correspondence from her first year as the nation's top diplomat, on Tuesday night.

The disclosure that Hillary conducted State Department business on a private email account has been a controversy for her campaign. The release of the emails, covering March through December 2009, also comes as a Republican-led Congressional committee is investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya and the way Clinton handled them.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the emails would be posted online.

The release comes as part of a court mandate that the agency release batches of Clinton's email correspondence from her time as secretary of state every 30 days starting June 30. The goal is for the department to publicly unveil 55,000 pages of her emails by Jan. 29, 2016. They were sent from the personal email address Clinton used when she was secretary of state. Clinton has said she wants the department to release the emails as soon as possible.

16:05ET 30-06-15