State Department officials released a heavily-redacted batch of Hillary Clinton's private emails Friday, including 37 documents that were classified, amid allegations that the former secretary broke the law by transmitting classified material on her personal server.

The 6,148 pages of emails fell short of the 8 percent of records the State Department had been required to produce by the end of July under a court order.

"We fell short this month," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner in a briefing Friday. Toner stated the agency would make up for the gap and noted officials "still intend to fulfill the goal."

The emails published Friday were heavily redacted and, in some cases, indicated Clinton indeed handled sensitive material on her private server.

In a series of email chains discussing personnel decisions during the early months of her tenure, Clinton worried about hiring someone who might not fit with her closed-door style.

"[I]t goes w/out saying that someone who lacks discretion is not possible," Clinton wrote in an email to Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff, in May 2009.

Other emails indicate Clinton suggested hiring her friends at the State Department, although the names of potential job candidates were usually redacted.

Clinton's use of a private email and server to house her government communications has been a lightning rod for critics since the House Select Committee on Benghazi revealed the arrangement in March.

The controversy reached new levels last week after the New York Times reported two inspectors general had asked the Department of Justice to open an investigation into whether classified information was mishandled on Clinton's private server.

Although the newspaper attempted to walk the story back in the face of pressure from the Clinton campaign, the news fueled scrutiny over Clinton's conduct as secretary of state.

Another report Thursday indicated the classified information on her server belonged to at least five different intelligence agencies, including the NSA and the CIA.

One email that contained classified information was improperly published May 22 in a batch of 296 emails that were related to Benghazi.

The inspector general for the intelligence community said earlier this month that five of the 40 emails he sampled contained classified information, raising concerns that hundreds more emails could have left classified information vulnerable.

A set of emails released at the end of June revealed Sidney Blumenthal, Clinton's former campaign aide, played an extensive advisory role despite being blocked from working at the State Department by President Obama's staff.

Blumenthal highlighted the fact that Clinton withheld work-related emails from the State Department last month when he gave the Benghazi committee dozens of emails that the agency had never provided.

His disclosure forced the State Department to admit Clinton had withheld all or part of at least 15 of the 60 emails, suggesting she screened the messages closely enough to determine which ones might raise uncomfortable questions for her campaign.