September 13, 2016 | No Comments
Two outside information technology consultants involved in handling Hillary Clinton’s private email setup repeatedly invoked their 5th Amendment rights at a House hearing Tuesday, while a former State Department information technology official defied a subpoena and failed to show up for the session.
However, a former close aide to Bill Clinton who played a key role in setting up Hillary Clinton’s email system — Justin Cooper — testified publicly on the arrangement for the first time at the House Oversight Committee hearing.
Tech specialists Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton repeatedly cited their constitutional right against self-incrimination in response to questions from Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz about security issues related to Clinton’s private email server.
Meanwhile, former State Department technology adviser Bryan Pagliano did not show up at all, leaving an empty seat behind his name-card at the witness table. His lawyer said Pagliano was willing to invoke his 5th Amendment rights in a closed session, but not an open one.
Chaffetz excused Combetta and Thornton after they invoked their 5th Amendment rights in response to several questions, but the chairman sounded angry about Pagliano’s refusal to appear.
“He made the decision not to appear and there are consequences for that,” the chairman said. “We’ll look at the full range of options, but if anybody’s under any illusion I’m going to let go of this and let it just sail off into the sunset, they are very ill advised. … I have no intention of going into executive session when he thumbs his nose at the United States Congress and wastes its time.”
Democrats argued that the hearing — the panel’s third about Clinton’s email in recent days — amounted to a partisan attack on Clinton’s presidential bid.
“I believe this Committee is abusing taxpayer dollars and the authority of Congress in an astonishing onslaught of political attacks to damage Secretary Clinton’s campaign for president,” ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings said. “This entire hearing is a contrived campaign photo op.”
Cummings also noted that Pagliano already invoked his 5th Amendment rights in a closed session of the House Benghazi Committee.
“There’s no legitimate reason for Republicans to force Mr. Pagliano to appear yet again before Congress just to assert his 5th Amendment rights,” Cummings said. “This is an absolute abuse of authority.”
Cooper said he became involved in setting up Clinton with personal email service as she was moving from the Senate to the State Department in January 2001.
“Secretary Clinton had personal email on her BlackBerry and was looking for a new solution to use personal email,” Cooper said.
During early questioning, Cooper offered some testimony highlighting the risks of Clinton’s email setup, but also appeared to debunk some GOP theories about the case.
Cooper said unauthorized efforts to log onto the Clinton server occurred “with some frequency,” leading the Clinton folks to implement new measures overseen by Pagliano.
Cooper also indicated that some of the computers he set up wound up in secure information spaces at the Clintons’ homes, but said he did not recall working on the devices once they were in those rooms. While some have speculated that the Clintons’ were paying Cooper’s legal bills, he said he’s paying them himself. He also said that while he destroyed old Clinton BlackBerrys, he always sought to back up that information and move it to a new device.
“It was not in any way to destroy or hide any information at all,” Cooper testified. “In fact, the opposite would be the case in that I was going out of my way to preserve all the information that was on those devices.”