Justin Cooper, a former White House aide to President Bill Clinton, was the lone witness Tuesday and answered the committee’s questions for almost two hours.
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They include Bryan Pagliano (pag-lee-AH’-noh), the former State Department computer specialist who was assigned to set up Clinton’s server.
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.
In a letter delivered Tuesday to Chaffetz, Pagliano’s lawyer Mark MacDougall indicated that Pagliano would continue to assert his Fifth Amendment rights and would not be appearing at the hearing. They invoked their Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination to each question from lawmakers and Jason Chaffetz, the committee’s Republican chairman, excused them out of what he called “respect” for their rights.
Pagliano’s lawyers, led by Mark MacDougall, sent a letter to Chaffetz on Monday, saying their client has repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment rights before Congress and doing so again “serves no legislative objective and is a transparent effort to publicly harass and humiliate” the former staffer.
Combetta, who Cummings said was granted limited immunity by the Justice Department for his cooperation in the probe, told the Federal Bureau of Investigation he was aware of a congressional order to preserve documents but had not received any specific guidance about it.
“Again, it’s the server that contained both Secretary Clinton’s and also President Clinton’s office on there”, said Cooper.
He didn’t specify what the penalties would be but said, “We’re not letting go of this”.
Cummings noted that FBI Director James Comey concluded that it was “not a cliffhanger” in deciding not to charge Clinton with a criminal offense.
Chaffetz called Clinton’s use of the private email server, her destruction of more than 30,000 emails she considered to be private and her handling of classified, national security material in the emails “an absolute mess.one of the biggest breaches of security in the history of the State Department”. Cooper told the committee that he thought that “was good practice at the time”.
Cooper told the committee that he did not have a security clearance during the period he was performing this work.
Three other individuals did appear, though two were of no more help to the committee than Pagliano.
“I was elected by some 800,000 people to come to Congress and see classified information”, Chaffetz declared to Herring who said he was unable to commit to making available the full FBI investigation files “with no redactions”.
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Clinton has said she regrets using the system in her NY home’s basement for work. Voters have said in surveys the decision contributes to a feeling she is untrustworthy.
