Hillary Clinton IT staffer subpoenaed by House Benghazi panel, will take the Fifth

(Image credit: AP Photo/Richard Drew)

In August, a House committee issued a subpoena to Brian Pagliano, a former information-technology staffer on Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid who later worked at the State Department and set up and oversaw Clinton's private email server at her home in New York. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of that committee — set up to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya — ordered Pagliano to testify on Sept. 10 and provide documents related to Clinton's homebrew server, The Washington Post reports. Through his lawyer, Pagliano said he will invoke his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent if he is compelled to attend the hearing.

"It is not clear why Mr. Pagliano is refusing to answer questions about the server," notes Michael S. Schmidt at The New York Times. "The FBI is investigating how classified information was handled in connection with the account, but no evidence has surfaced that Mr. Pagliano had anything to do with those materials."

Pagliano's lawyer, Mark MacDougall, acknowledged in a letter to Gowdy that the decision "may be controversial in the current political environment," but cited the FBI investigation and quoted a Supreme Court ruling about the Fifth Amendment protecting "innocent men... 'who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.'"

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Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, blamed Gowdy and backed Pagliano's decision. "Although multiple legal experts agree there is no evidence of criminal activity, it is certainly understandable that this witness' attorneys advised him to assert his Fifth Amendment rights, especially given the onslaught of wild and unsubstantiated accusations" from Republicans, he said. "Their insatiable desire to derail Secretary Clinton's presidential campaign at all costs has real consequences for any serious congressional effort."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.