A former State Department IT staffer who was involved in setting up and servicing Hillary Clinton’s private email server refused to answer questions from a second congressional committee Tuesday, sparking anger among Republican committee members.
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Rep. Elijah Cummings, the committee’s ranking Democrat, defended the silence of Pagliano and the technicians at a hearing he believes is a political witch hunt. In June 2013, after Clinton had left office, the server was moved from her Chappaqua, New York, home to a data center in northern New Jersey, where it was maintained by the Platte River Networks.
The men were then excused from the hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Associated Press reports. Chaffetz says there will be consequences for Pagliano’s refusal to appear and for “thumbing his nose at Congress”.
Pagliano had previously pleaded the Fifth Amendment in September 2015 when he was called before the congressional committee investigating the attack in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Chaffetz issued a subpoena to top FBI official Jason Herring on Monday for every document related to the bureau’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State.
“We developed systems to tamp those down”, Cooper said. Throughout this ordeal, he has repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
A fourth witness – a former aide to former President Bill Clinton – stayed to answer questions.
The IT specialist who ran Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server ignored a subpoena to testify before Congress Tuesday, leaving GOP lawmakers fuming and threatening retribution. Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (CHAY’-fits) said Cooper purchased the first server used by Clinton and registered the clintonemail.com domain name.
Pagliano installed the main server that Clinton set up in her suburban NY home while she was secretary of state, and he handled software upgrades and general maintenance, according to recently released files from the FBI’s investigation, which recommended no charges against Clinton or her aides.
Clinton’s Republican challenger, real estate mogul Donald Trump, has often attacked Clinton’s handling of the classified material and political surveys show many voters question her honesty in answering questions about the emails. I was elected by some 800,000 people to come to Congress and see classified information.
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Chaffetz issued subpoenas to two other individuals from the technology firm that helped manage Clinton’s private server.
