Tech expert who set up Clinton’s server ignores subpoena

They refused to answer questions from House lawmakers, invoking their right to remain silent under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

The man who reportedly set up Hillary Clinton’s private server followed through on a promise not to appear to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday morning. “We would then over time develop more sophisticated ways which the direction Mr. Pagliano helped to filter those sorts of failed log-in attempts”, Cooper said, referring to Bryan Pagliano, former senior advisor of Information Resource Management for the State Department, who was subpoenaed to testify at the hearing but did not show up. The FBI said in a report on its investigation of Clinton’s use of the server that a technician deleted an archive of e-mails in March 2015 after a House committee looking into the attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi subpoenaed records concerning the incident.

The latest call for Pagliano to testify furthered “no legislative objective and is a transparent effort to publicly harass and humiliate” him “for unvarnished political purposes”, Pagliano’s lawyers wrote in a letter to the committee’s chairman, Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah. His attorney, Howard Shapiro, sat behind him. Cooper said there was “a desire to change her email address because a number of people had received her email address over the course of those activities”. Pagliano’s lawyers responded early Tuesday, saying he would come to such a session but that he would again invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.

Whether or not Clinton’s server was hacked by foreign adversaries has been a focal point of debate over her use of a personal server while secretary of State.

“You’d think someone would sing like a songbird if they were given immunity by the FBI”, Chaffetz continued.

Cooper told the committee that he did not have a security clearance during the period he was performing this work. “Mr. Pagliano has chose to disobey subpoena”.

“So here’s what we have heard from people who have seen this stuff: that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is attempting to create a false impression of what they want us to think they found by selectively releasing all information”, Napolitano said on “Fox & Friends”.

Combetta is believed to be the individual who deleted backup servers that contained Clinton’s emails after Congress issued a preservation order.

Clinton has said she regrets using the system in her NY home’s basement for work.

FBI agents and federal prosecutors spent almost a year investigating whether Clinton violated laws governing the protection of classified material by using her private email system while serving as the nation’s top diplomat. He told lawmakers that he couldn’t say whether any secret information had been purloined by foreign hackers or that USA national security had been compromised.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) asked Cooper why he made the decision to host Clinton’s email server in her home rather than use a company’s hosting services such as 1and1.com. Voters have said in surveys the decision contributes to a feeling she is untrustworthy.