Washington, May 19 (IANS/EFE): The US Department of State has proposed to the US District Court in Washington to make public official emails Hillary Clinton exchanged on a private server while engaged as secretary of state, Politico newspaper reported.

Vice News had filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking the release of the emails.

By the time they are released, more than a year will have passed since the former diplomatic chief handed them over to the government.

The 55,000 pages of emails from Clinton's 2009-2012 tenure were handed over to the department after controversy arose surrounding her use of a personal email address and a private server for communications during that period.

The department plans to release them on January 15, 2016, weeks before the Democratic Party presidential primaries in Iowa on February 1.

"The department understands the considerable public's (sic) interest in these records and is endeavouring to complete the review and production of them as expeditiously as possible," John Hackett, the State Department's acting director of information programmes and services, told the court, reported Politico on Monday.

"The collection is, however, voluminous and due to the breadth of topics, the nature of the communications and the interests of several agencies, presents several challenges," he added.

Clinton, a favourite to become the Democratic candidate in the 2016 presidential election, acknowledged in March that using her official email address would have been a more "intelligent" thing to do.

She said no official mail, only personal emails and messages, were deleted from the material handed over.