Democratic presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton has broken almost a month-long silence on her email controversy, saying she wants the documents to be released as soon as possible.

"I want those emails out," Clinton said on Tuesday. “Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do.”

She made the remarks at a campaign event in Iowa on Tuesday, shortly after US District Judge Rudolph Contreras rejected a State Department proposal to release 55,000 pages of emails by next January.

The judge instead ordered the agency to conduct a "rolling production" of the records in the meantime.

“I respect the State Department," Clinton said. "They have their process, as they do for everybody, not just for me, but anything that they might do to expedite that process, I heartily support.  … I want the American people to learn as much as we can about the work that I did.”

The front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination has come under intense criticism after the New York Times published a report early in March that suggested she violated federal regulations by using a private email account from a server at her New York home while in government.

She was the secretary of state during Obama’s first term and his primary opponent before that in the 2008 presidential election. She is also the wife of former US President Bill Clinton who was in office from 1993 to 2001.

Clinton, however, said on Tuesday the documents’ release will reflect positively on her tenure.

“I think it will show how hard we worked and what we did for our country during the time that I was secretary of state, where I worked extremely hard on behalf of our values,” she said.

Using personal email does not necessarily violate rules as long as they are properly preserved, but the practice has raised doubts about her transparency.

The email controversy weighs down Clinton’s poll numbers, particularly on the question of trustworthiness.

A poll conducted by Associated Press-GfK, indicated that six in ten voters believe that the word "honest" describes Clinton only slightly well or not well at all.

SB/GJH