Hillary Clinton violated government policy when the then-secretary of state stored official messages on a private server, a federal judge affirmed on Thursday, Politico reported.

Judge Emmet Sullivan, who serves on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, made the comment during a hearing on one of a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits seeking access to Clinton's records from the time she served as the nation's top diplomat.

"We wouldn't be here today if this employee had followed government policy," Sullivan quipped, apparently in reference to the Democratic presidential front-runner. His comment came in response to an argument made by the U.S. Department of Justice, which had contended that FOIA searches do not typically involve a government employee's personal email account, the New York Times said.

The federal judge further ordered the State Department to contact the FBI to determine whether the private server Clinton had used contains official records that might have to be turned over under FOIA rules, Politico noted. The wife of former President Bill Clinton has said that she has already surrendered more than 30,000 emails and deleted about the same number of what she considered "personal" messages.

The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, was quick to defend the candidate's communication habits following Sullivan's comments. "Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email account was consistent with the practice of other secretaries of state, and permissible under the department's policy at the time," Brian Fallon, a spokesman, insisted.

On the stump in Las Vegas, meanwhile, Clinton herself on Tuesday had seemed to challenge the notion that she had violated "government policy," the Washington publication detailed. "What I did was legally permitted," she insisted.

The Freedom of Information Act suit, over which Sullivan is presiding, was brought by the conservative group Judicial Watch, which is looking to obtain documents related to the special employment status of Huma Abedin, a close Foggy Bottom aide to the then-secretary, according to the New York Times. Clinton herself is not a party to the proceeding, Politico noted.