Bryan Pagliano, the former State Department computer expert who set up Hillary Clinton‘s private email server, failed to appear at a congressional hearing today despite being subpoenaed.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, called the hearing to examine the preservation of State Department records in its on-going efforts to investigate the former Secretary’s use of a private server.
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.
In a letter delivered yesterday 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.
“As the committee is well aware, Mr. Pagliano fully cooperated with the Department of Justice, subject to a limited grant of use immunity. Any effort to require Mr. Pagliano to publicly appear this week and again assert his Fifth Amendment rights before a committee of the same Congress, inquiring about the same matter as the Benghazi Committee, furthers no legislative purpose and is a transparent effort to publicly harass and humiliate our client for unvarnished political purposes.”
Via ABC News