Thursday morning, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform announced that Bryan Pagliano, formerly Senior Advisor in the Bureau of Information Resource Management under Hillary Clinton, has been found to be in contempt of Congress. The former Clinton IT staffer was subpoenaed to testify by the committee on September 13th, but never appeared before them in spite of having been granted immunity by the FBI in the probe into Clinton’s private email server. Congressman, Jason Chaffetz, the committee chairman, issued a statement on the matter that you can watch below (PDF transcript here):
In the statement, Chaffetz notes that Pagliano helped install and maintain Clinton’s private email server, which was physically stored in the basement of her home in Chappaqua, New York. Pagliano’s co-workers “questioned his ability to support a private client’s email server, given his capacity as a full-time government employee.” On top of that, while his tenure more or less mirrored Clinton’s as Secretary of State, the State Department “has only been able to find a handful of his emails,” which are federal records just like Clinton’s.
The committee feels that Pagliano “was uniquely qualified to provide testimony to help the Committee better understand Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server.” But he didn’t testify because his lawyer asserted that “because his client took the Fifth before the Select Committee on Benghazi, he shouldn’t be required to provide testimony to this Committee.” Obviously, the committee doesn’t see this as a valid reason not to appear. That led them to this conclusion in Chaffetz’s statement:
This Committee cannot operate – it cannot perform its duty, nor can any committee of Congress – if its subpoenas are ignored. So, we are left with no choice but to consider this Resolution and Report recommending the House hold Mr. Pagliano in Contempt of Congress.
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