The former information technology adviser to Hillary Clinton is reportedly intending to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at a deposition next week in answering questions about Clinton’s decision to use an unsecure personal server exclusively in her communications as Secretary of State. Bryan Pagliano made the disclosure in a court filing where he also sought to prevent the videotaping of his invocation of the privilege against self-incrimination.
Pagliano’s lawyers Mark MacDougall and Connor Mullin wrote that “Mr. Pagliano will invoke his right under the Fifth Amendment and decline to testify at the deposition . . . Given the constitutional implications, the absence of any proper purpose for video recording the deposition, and the considerable risk of abuse, the Court should preclude Judicial Watch, Inc. … from creating an audiovisual recording of Mr. Pagliano’s deposition.”
Putting aside the question of videotaping, the invocation raises a concern that (with the reported immunity deal with the Justice Department) Pagliano could effectively bury the truth about what occurred in the controversy. If no criminal charges are brought by the Justice Department, Pagliano can remain silent and effectively walk with his knowledge. It would seem reasonable for Judicial Watch to ask for the scope of any immunity deal that would already protect him from such disclosure.
The silence of Pagliano and the reported lapse of memory of other top aides is likely good news for the Clinton team in pre-November damage control. If top aides will claim faulty memories or invoke their right to remain silent, the only disclosures before the election would have to come from the FBI or Congress. Yet, the FBI would turn over any proposed indictments to the Justice Department and, if the Justice Department scuttles any indictment, there would not normally be a public report.
There are 2 type of Hillary voters, those who are forthright and declare it, and those who lie and say they support Bernie, Warren, Biden, JFK, whomever. I also notice there is a direct relationship between more lies from Hillary being exposed and an increase in Bush Derangement Syndrome. That freakin’ virus just won’t die. LOL!
Lisa N is onto something. Clearly if you work for the government and have sworn to uphold the Constitution, you should not be allowed to avail yourself of it’s very tenets or civil rights!
Maybe Donald should not debate Hillary. She was tough in today’s speech in CA. Someone above mentioned that Donald is better at domestic affairs than foreign affairs. That is probably true. But he should not have any affairs until after he is elected. Hillary did not look as bad in front of the video camera as she does on the photos posted here. I think that my toilet paper idea is a good one. Donald has a lot of money. Maybe free toilet paper depicting ugly Hillary for all of America. Not just the outhouses. We have to do something to tame this beast. She was good in the speech.
Karen – The lawsuit he’s pleading the fifth is the Judicial Watch one.
That’s a completely separate deal than the investigation the FBI is conducting, in which immunity was granted.
I think if you work for the government and paid by American taxpayers, pleading the fifth should be denied. If you work for the Feds and don’t talk, then you should go to jail until you do.
Let’s try to stick with actual facts There is not one shred of credible evidence from a remotely believable source that her email ever got hacked.
and by the way, whatever happened to the 22,000,000 emails that went missing from the Bush White House. Anyone? Anyone? And if you’re going to say that happened in the past, let me remind you that Ms. Clinton has not been the Secretary of State since 2013. So that won’t fly.
phillyT – you have not been paying attention. The emails you are complaining about did not go missing from the WH, they went missing from the RNC, which had a policy of deleting emails after 90 days. When they realized they might be subject to federal law they stopped deleting them. The 20 million is a guess and includes 100 political appointees, but not the President.
Thank you Steve and Tin. I’d completely missed Tin’s post.
As for Guccifer, since Hillary Clinton put HUMINT on her email and uploaded it to the Cloud, they will likely try as hard as possible to shut him up. They certainly would not want disclosure of the docs he’d lifted. He wasn’t a white hat hacker whistleblower in this case, if I understand correctly. And because he was being monitored by the Russian government, now they purportedly have every email ever produced by the Secretary of State, including Top Secret intel.
A Republican or Democrat opposed to Hillary might offer him immunity for his testimony, but I doubt the current DOJ ever would.
Abel,
“obstruction of justice”
That last charge against Guccifer should be dropped. Without him her wrongdoing would still be unknown.
Stonewalling is a kind of obstruction of justice, isn’t it? Lots of faulty memories, refusing to talk to IG, etc. Hmmmmm. Wait, that’s not Guccifer…
Hillary was on tv a half hour ago. She looked a lot better than I expected. She was quite tough on Donald and portrayed him as a moron. She was speaking to voters in San Diego. This event makes me think that she will not be as easy for Trump to beat as I previously thought. She was not railing on the Bernie guy at all. Just the Donald. November is a long way away. We need more scuttlebutt– something better than the email stuff.
Elton – focus groups show foreign affairs as Trump’s weak point. He beats her in every other area.
Does anyone know if the immunity granted to Pagliano was blanket immunity or limited solely to the area the FBI is looking into? If it is limited immunity then it makes sense for him to invoke the 5th so that his testimony isn’t used against him on some other charge unrelated to the issues the FBI is proving wouldn’t it?
I just knew she was going to get away with breaking the law…again.
If we can’t keep our republic, then we’ll become a banana republic, likely with some dictator we allow to rise to power.
Can the lawyers answer this question for me?
If he got an immunity deal, and then pleads the 5th, wouldn’t that negate his immunity deal? If he refuses to testify, couldn’t they revoke the deal and prosecute him?
Karen S: Tin answered this earlier. It depends on the scope of immunity and the specifics of the agreement with prosecutors in the criminal case. The civil case has a different agenda and different facts that very well may be broader than the scope of his immunity in the criminal case.
Pleading the Fifth is fair game. However, recall 1st basemen Mark McGuire, who pleaded the Fifth before Congress about his steroid use while trying to keep the canary’s feathers from blowing out his self-shaming, guilt-ridden mouth. He looked as guilty as they come when he asserted the privilege. Then, after the limitations period ran, he admitted to the lie. Demeanor at deposition is important, even if the deponent refuses to testify.
More Hillary closet junk: The Romania hacker Guccifer.
CLINTON E-MAIL TROVE LIKELY IN RUSSIAN HANDS
Thousands of e-mails from Hillary Clinton’s private, unsecured server, created while she served as Secretary of State, are reportedly in the possession of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). The SVR is said to have gained access to the e-mails, of which it made copies, through its monitoring of a Romanian computer hacker named Marcel Lazăr Lehel (aka Guccifer). Guccifer had learned about the existence of Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail account after accessing the e-mails of her close confidante and informal adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, with whom Hillary had extensive correspondence during her term as Secretary of State.
In March 2016, Chairwoman Matviyenko is said to have called for a total release of the e-mails, in part to influence the U.S. presidential election. Ms. Matvivenko reportedly cited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s positive statements about Donald Trump and claimed that Hillary Clinton was not liked by the Russian people.
Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but Guccifer was quickly extradited to the United States from Romania at the end of March. He is facing a nine-count federal indictment on various charges, including wire fraud, cyberstalking, identify theft, unauthorized access to computers and obstruction of justice.
This is an absurd campaign season.
Keep the ugly photos of Scuttlebutt Clinton on the screen. Different ones tho. No repeats. We need one of her on toilet paper published on the blog here. A roll of Scuttlebutt Clinton– wipe away your sorrows.
It is being reported that Clinton will be making statements today that Trump is a threat to national security. The absurdity of this campaign season is astonishing.
Olly – who is it whose email was hacked by foreign governments? Wasn’t Trump.
More Hillary closet junk:
Did Obama authorize Clinton’s private email server use?
So egregious have the scandal’s latest developments been that a critical State Department admission from last week has received almost no coverage: Eighteen e-mails between Mrs. Clinton and President Obama have been identified, and the government is refusing to disclose them.
The administration’s rationale is remarkable: Releasing them, the White House and State Department say, would compromise “the president’s ability to receive unvarnished advice and counsel” from top government officials.
Think about what this means. Not only is it obvious that President Obama knew Mrs. Clinton was conducting government business over her private e-mail account, the exchanges the president engaged in with his secretary of state over this unsecured system clearly involved sensitive issues of policy. Clinton was being asked for “advice and counsel” — not about her recommendations for the best country clubs in Martha’s Vineyard, but about matters that the White House judges too sensitive to reveal.
I haven’t independently verified this but I have heard Hillary Clinton has NEVER had her polling numbers improve in any race that she was in.
Can Loretta Lynch legally violate a Federal Judge’s ruling?
What are the reliefs of the federal court from such aggrecious acts by the DOJ?
Loretta Lynch should be arrested by Texas Rangers for blatantly breaking a federal court ruling.
Paul,
Evidence doesn’t matter. That’s one deep problem in the US at this time. That’s why I said, there’s plenty of evidence. Evidence isn’t the problem. Lack of the rule of law is.
Loretta Lynch should be impeached for her refusal to comply with a Texas federal judge’s ruling on illegal immigrants being secreted into America and the dishonesty of the DOJ.
Now their protecting Pagliano! This is the Department of UN-Justice and typical of a lawless democrat administration.
The inmates are running the government.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-31/wikileaks-asks-if-smoking-gun-email-will-bring-down-hillary
There’s plenty of evidence. The problem lies in the lack of the rule of law in the US. What we have is the rule of fiat. For powerful people, this means that they will only be charged with a crime: 1. if they pissed off a more powerful person or group 2. if the more powerful person or group finds enforcing the law a convenient way to get rid of someone (in this case, they don’t want Clinton as the candidate) or 3. as a show trial which will end up looking like something is being done to uphold the rule of law, but in the end, nothing of real consequence comes out of the trial.
That’s what we have in the US. It’s scary.
People, even guilty as hell sleaze bags, have the right to take the 5th. We should uphold that right.
Jill – that email string was released at least 3 months ago. We have all wondered why it has not gotten more play.