The Justice Department has granted immunity to the ex-staffer who helped set up a private email server in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s New York home, CNN and The Washington Post reported late Wednesday.
An anonymous senior law enforcement official told the Post that the FBI had “secured the cooperation” of Bryan Pagliano. CNN reported that Pagliano agreed to grant an interview for the ongoing criminal investigation, also citing an anonymous law enforcement official.
The ongoing FBI investigation focuses on whether classified information was mishandled on the Democratic presidential frontrunner’s email server. Clinton is not said to be the target of the investigation.
“As we have said since last summer, Secretary Clinton has been cooperating with the Department of Justice’s security inquiry, including offering in August to meet with them to assist their efforts if needed,” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told the Post.
Clinton said at a presidential debate last month that she was “100 percent confident” that nothing would come of the investigation.
Pagliano invoked his Fifth Amendment right to decline to testify before a House committee in September. He also vowed not to testify to the Senate committees investigating the matter if he were subpoenaed.
An unnamed Clinton campaign official told The New York Times at the time that the campaign had encouraged Pagliano to testify, characterizing his decision not to do so as “understandable and disappointing.”
I would have refused to testify in front of the Senate or House as well. Anyone should be able to refuse to give testimony under oath to a lynch mob.
Immunity means the Justice Department must forego bringing a case against him, but if the DOJ thought they had a case against Pagliano, they would not grant him immunity. They would prosecute that case, or else make a plea deal which could include the grant of immunity. They are granting him immunity because there is no case they are foregoing, so, this way, he can and will give them evidence.
Also…
This cuts out the dubious activities of certain poltically biased committees…
And meanwhile, John Bolton etal are pretending this MEANS something…I love how they blame Clinton for things they have done but SOMEHOW ‘she’ should have been smarter and after all, ‘this is the way the Clintons operate’…wink wink nod nod and for the most part the media pretends to go along with it…
Precisely. You’d have to be a complete idiot to testify about anything before a Senate or House committee. I’d take the 5th if they asked me what my address was.
“CNN reported that Pagliano agreed to grant an interview for the ongoing criminal investigation, also citing an anonymous law enforcement official.”
Is this correct? I have never heard it described as a criminal investigation.