Posted on 06/01/2016 4:19:12 PM PDT by jazusamo
The man believed to have set up and maintained Hillary Clinton’s private email server will assert his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refuse to answer questions as part of an open records lawsuit against the State Department.
Bryan Pagliano will decline to answer questions from Judicial Watch, the conservative legal watchdog group, during a deposition scheduled for Monday, his lawyers wrote in a court filing
on Wednesday afternoon.
The move forecloses the possibility that Pagliano would break his months of silence about the server issue, even as scrutiny has intensified on his role.
Pagliano’s lawyers told Judicial Watch more than a week ago that he would not be answering any questions, they claimed in their filing on Wednesday, and asked that it drop its subpoena. The organization refused.
In the filing, Pagliano’s lawyers tried to have a federal judge block Judicial Watch from recording his deposition, given his planned refusal to answer questions. The lawyers said that a written transcription of the proceedings should be enough to satisfy the public’s interest.
“Given the constitutional implications, the absence of any proper purpose for video recording the deposition, and the considerable risk of abuse, the court should preclude Judicial Watch …. from creating an audiovisual recording of Mr. Pagliano’s deposition,” they wrote.
Videotaped depositions “pose a serious danger to deponents invoking the Fifth Amendment,” the lawyers added, pointing to past court decisions warning that the video makes a good “soundbite.”
According to the filing, Judicial Watch said it would oppose any such motion.
Questions about Pagliano’s role in Clinton’s bespoke email arrangement ramped up after he accepted a deal for immunity from the federal government as part of his cooperation with the FBI’s ongoing investigation into Clinton’s setup.
Yet very little is known about Pagliano and how he maintained the server at Clinton’s New York home.
The IT expert has previously refused to answer questions on Capitol Hill, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights before the House Select Committee on Benghazi and rejecting requests from leaders of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees to answer their questions.
Last month, the State Department said that it had lost the backup archive of Pagliano’s emails from his time at the department. However, it had been able to cobble together some emails through the accounts of other officials.
Last month, a federal judge gave Judicial Watch the go-ahead to ask Pagliano questions under oath as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit connected to Clinton’s emails, alongside key Clinton aides such as Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin.
Mills answered questions for roughly seven hours last Friday, during which she claimed never to have seen Pagliano interacting with Clinton or her senior aides.
Clinton’s email server wasn’t connected to State’s systems.
Can’t they grant this guy immunity in exchange for his testimony?
I’m afraid you’re right and like you it really ticks me off.
Can a non party in a Civil case plead the 5th?
There had to be some kind of connection between her server and the State Department servers for her to have classified documents on hers.
The investigators need people who are technical experts to be asking the questions, not typical lawyers.
Once you have “Immunity” from “Criminal Prosecution” your Right to not incriminate yourself is MOOT and NON-EXISTENT, because YOU CAN NOT BE PROSECUTED.
Jail the LAWYERS and the WITNESS for Contempt, heavy Sanctions for the lawyers also, enough to be disbarred.
Some info for you: NIPRNet is used for unclassified email (could still be FOUO though). SIPRNet is used for emails containing info up to the SECRET classification. JWICS is used for emails containing info up to the TOP SECRET classification. For an email to go to a less classified system (i.e. from SIPRNET to NIPRNet) a “trusted download” has to be done (at least 2 subject matter experts or an originator have to deem the material acceptable for the lower classification). Otherwise the email cannot be moved down to the lower classification email system. This ain’t rocket science -she and her minions broke the law repeatedly.
As I understand it there were no actual classified docs communicated through her server, but she and her aides retyped classified info and sent it in the emails.
Even if he started singing like a canary, he’d end up as fish food joining Vince Foster and others who crossed the
Clinton Crime Family.
I would assume Judicial Watch expected this and is not surprised, either.
Pagliano is a key to many things. MANY.
Could not agree with you more. << “ Pagliano probably fears for his life” >>
This will play out over coming years, eventually. Should anything happen to him, he probably has a hidden document, diary, who knows what else, already in the proper place.
Does he have immunity for the federal investigation, and possible federal prosecution, but no immunity for the civil case? Can it work that way?
Wonder who handles Gov. Terry McAuliff’s emails.....
Judicial watch lawsuit is different than fbi investigation.
“Judicial Watch is going to blow this.”
I’m not so sure about that. It seems like after years of trying, they’ve got some real live ones here. I predict an enormous poop explosion when the lid finally comes off of everything. It might happen very quickly when the dominoes start to fall - that is, the various players negotiating for the best deal that they can get.
“As I understand it there were no actual classified docs communicated through her server, but she and her aides retyped classified info and sent it in the emails.”
As classified is defined by the government, those documents are STILL classified, the only difference being that they have been illegally copied, modified, and re-transmitted.
No, there is an air gap between classified and unclassified systems.
The info got there because someone moved it across the air gap.
Once you have “Immunity” from “Criminal Prosecution” your Right to not incriminate yourself is MOOT and NON-EXISTENT, because YOU CAN NOT BE PROSECUTED.
Jail the LAWYERS and the WITNESS for Contempt, heavy Sanctions for the lawyers also, enough to be disbarred.
You’re absolutely right and that’s why she and her cohorts should be prosecuted.
“because YOU CAN NOT BE PROSECUTED.”
You cannot be prosecuted for crimes that fall within the scope of your immunity agreement. Anything that falls outside of that scope, you are still fair game.
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