Watch: John Kerry Mocks Question About Hillary Clinton Emails, 'Such an Important Issue

Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to have little patience Thursday for questions about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private emails, and mocked their importance at a press conference in Saudi Arabia.

Kerry was asked if State has all of Clinton's private emails that relate to her work at the department, or if State might only have just those emails that Clinton has agreed to turn over.

"I have to check on that," he said. "I believe we have all the ones that – I think we have all the ones that are state.gov, which are appropriately the ones in the purview of the department."

"But let me check on that when I actually have time to pay attention to such an important issue when I get home," he added.

It was discovered early this week that Clinton used her own private email system, and her own private server, to conduct business while she led the State Department. That fact was uncovered by the House Select Committee on Benghazi in the process of asking for all of Clinton's emails related to the 2012 attack that left four Americans dead.

During the week, Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said the State Department has told him that it can't be sure it has all of Clinton's relevant emails, which is why he subpoenaed Clinton on Wednesday.

Gowdy's statements and his actions indicate he already knows that State can't be of any further help, and that Kerry is unlikely to learn anything different when he finds time to "pay attention to such an important issue."

Kerry noted that State does have emails involving Clinton that are between her and other officials who have "state.gov" email addresses. He also noted that Clinton did hand over thousands of pages of emails that State is reviewing, a process that is expected to take several months.

"We will undertake this task as rapidly as possible in order to make sure that we're dealing with the sheer volume of this in a responsible way and we'll conclude it as soon as we can and get those released publicly," he said.

To be fair, Kerry has been busy lately — he's been trying to build a coalition to fight the Islamic State terrorist group that continues to ravage the Middle East, coping with Russia's largely unchecked aggression toward Ukraine, and hoping for an Iran nuclear deal that satisfies domestic and international critics.