Rep. Trey Gowdy, denied.
A former State Department staffer who helped set up Hillary Clinton's private server
has declined to appear before congressional committees investigating whatever the hell it is they're currently investigating about Clinton.
The move by Bryan Pagliano, who had worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009, came in a Monday letter from his lawyer to the House panel investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
The letter cited the ongoing FBI inquiry into the security of Clinton’s e-mail system, and it quoted a Supreme Court ruling in which justices described the Fifth Amendment as protecting "innocent men . . . 'who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.'" […]
While we understand that Mr. Pagliano's response to this subpoena may be controversial in the current political environment, we hope that the members of the Select Committee will respect our client's right to invoke the protections of the Constitution," his attorney, Mark MacDougall, wrote.
A Clinton campaign aide
says that this was entirely a personal decision on Pagliano's part and that it is "both understandable and disappointing to us, because we believe he has every reason to be transparent about his I.T. assistance. We had hoped Bryan would also agree to answer any questions from the committee and had recently encouraged him to grant the committee’s request for an interview." The aide added that Pagliano is "an utter professional and a wonderful young man who does not live in the public eye and understandably may not wish to be drawn into a political spectacle."
The political spectacle aspect of the hearings were amplified by ranking Democratic member of the House committee, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) who said it was understandable that Pagliano would decline to participate "especially given the onslaught of wild and unsubstantiated accusations by Republican presidential candidates, members of Congress and others based on false leaks about the investigation."