Hillary's Former IT Staffer Refuses to Cooperate with FBI/State Dept Investigations

[askew]

From Michael Isikoff at Yahoo:

The former aide to Hillary Clinton who helped set up and maintain her private email server has declined to talk to the FBI and the State Department inspector general’s office, as well as a congressional committee, invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, sources familiar with the investigation confirmed to Yahoo News.

The move by Bryan Pagliano, who served on Clinton’s 2008 campaign and later as a technology officer in the State Department, to decline to cooperate in two federal probes considerably raises the stakes in the Clinton email investigation, the sources said. It confronts the Justice Department with a decision about whether to grant him immunity in exchange for his testimony — a move that could be taken only were the department to escalate the probe into a full-scale criminal investigation, the sources said.

Pagliano’s decision this week to decline to testify before a congressional committee investigating the death of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi was first reported Wednesday night by the Washington Post. But Pagliano’s earlier rebuffs to federal investigators, including the FBI, have not been previously reported.

Pagliano, who maintained the private email server in the basement of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, N.Y., was first contacted by the State Department inspector general’s office in June, the sources said. The inspector general was at that point in the early stages of its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct official business.

But Pagliano — a potential key figure in the probe — declined to speak to the inspector general’s investigators, informing them through his Washington lawyer, Mark MacDougall, that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right, the sources said.

Then, in late July, the State Department inspector general and the inspector general for the director of national intelligence referred the matter to the FBI counterintelligence division to determine if classified information was mishandled through the use of the private email server after finding evidence that classified information was communicated on emails sent through the server. But officials stressed at that time that the inquiry was an intelligence probe and not a criminal investigation.

At that point, the FBI also sought to question Pagliano and he again refused. His refusal to answer questions was communicated by his lawyer to senior lawyers in the counterintelligence section of the Justice Department’s national security division — one of whom had previously been in charge of the investigation into former CIA Director David Petraeus, the sources said.

But sources familiar with the Clinton probe said Pagliano is a potentially central figure who may be one of the few who can answer key questions about why the private email server was set up, what he was told by Clinton about its purpose, who had access to it and what protections existed to guard against hackers or any other outside intrusions.

Pagliano had served as information technology director for Clinton’s 2008 campaign. He later moved to the State Department office of the chief technology officer but continued to maintain access to the private server “remotely” as well as paying occasional visits to the Clintons’ home to help maintain it, the sources said.

Not cooperating with the GOP House Committee is one thing. Not cooperating with the FBI and State Department investigations is a whole different issue.

This is starting to get really ugly for Hillary.

[Metric System]

1. Republican sources, spinning like a record.

[askew]

2. Bullshit.

Address the article or not, but don't make up conspiracy theories to make your candidate look better. Isikoff is a good journalist and wouldn't be reporting this if it wasn't true.

[Metric System]

5. Who do you think are his sources? And are you so naive to think this...

"a move that could be taken only were the department to escalate the probe into a full-scale criminal investigation, the sources said."

...isn't Republicans trying to raise the spectre of a "criminal investigation?"

[Metric System]

8. I think you should delve deeper into Isikoff's history:

http://mediamatters.org/research/2005/05/17/media-mum-on-newsweek-s-isikoffs-role-in-clinto/133214

[DURHAM D]

11. Amen. I don't need to read your link

as I remember his close association with his angel's Anne Coulter and Lucianne Goldberg who provided him leaked info from Starr during the Clinton impeachment and then he went on the TV every night and lied. I despise the little smelly tweb.

oh well, I will read the link anyway

[L0oniX]

13. Yes CNN is also a posting disreputable republican source material.

[morningfog]

14. Has he refused to cooperate or not?

Has he invoked the 5th or not?

[msongs]

3. the article says "declined" and you say "refused". interesting nt

[askew]

4. Declined is his spin on it. You don't get to choose whether or not you cooperate with

authorities. You either do it or refuse. If you refuse, there can be consequences such as being charged with obstruction of justice.

[Sienna86]

7. Or he could be offered immunity, and would be forced to testify in a grand jury.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out. Who is paying his attorney I wonder?

[Warren DeMontague]

6. no more interesting than the headlines posted here that said "State Department says no laws broken"

when the State Department said no such thing.

[m-lekktor]

9. both words have the same meaning according to the thesaraus

decline is listed as a synonym for refuse.

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/refuse

[Hiraeth]

10. thesaurus says they are synonyms

Synonyms for decline
verb say no

deny star
dismiss star
refuse star
reject star
abjure star
abstain star
avoid star

balk star
bypass star
demur star
desist star
disapprove star
forbear star
forgo star

gainsay star
nix star
refrain star
renounce star
reprobate star
repudiate star
shy star

spurn star
beg to be excused star
don't buy star
not accept star
not hear of star
not think of star

pass on star
send regrets star
turn down star
turn thumbs down star

Antonyms for declined

accept
allow
approve
grant

sanction
agree
continue
go along

indulge
use
want
ascend

go up
improve
increase
rise

say yes

Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.
Cite This Source
More words related to declined
less
adj. smaller, inferior

beneath
declined
deficient
depressed
diminished

excepting
fewer
lacking
lesser
limited

lower
minor
minus
negative
not as great

reduced
secondary
shortened
shorter
slighter

subordinate
subtracting
unsubstantial
without

neglected
adj. slighted

abandoned
affronted
cast aside
decayed
declined
deferred
depreciated

deserted
despised
deteriorated
disdained
dismissed
disregarded
evaded

forgotten
ignored
lapsed
omitted
overlooked
passed over
postponed

scorned
shunned
spurned
tossed aside
unconsidered
underestimated
undervalued

unheeded
unused
unwanted
unwatched

vetoed
adj. rejected

declined

disapproved

refused

[procon]

12. Try thinking in terms of a 3 dimensional legal and political chess game here

and avoid grabbing for the all too easy to grab low hanging hints of some unnamed, formless wrongdoing that is intended to snare the unwary.

The article even helpful lays out part of the game plan by mentioning the other probes that Clinton's former aide has declined to cooperate with and noting that this "considerably raises the stakes in the Clinton email investigation." This tactic will now force the Justice Department to decide if they just give him pass, or if there is enough credible evidence to initiate a full-scale criminal investigation against Clinton and then offer him immunity if they believe his testimony with make their case bulletproof.

More importantly, any potential charges they might consider laying on Clinton, must be so substantial and her crimes so nefarious, that they can be seen as unquestionably legitimate and not criticised as just petty excuse for attacking another Clinton.