Just days after the State Department released 7,000 emails from Hillary Clinton‘s private server, a former Clinton aide invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying under oath in a congressional investigation.
Clinton’s use of the server to send and receive email as Secretary of State has earned her intense criticism, with some conservatives accusing her of breaking the law. Although she has repeatedly claimed that she never sent information known to be classified at the time, experts still say that her decision to use the server hampered transparency and security.
The server first came to light in the course of a congressional investigation into the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, an incident for which conservatives have lambasted President Barack Obama and Clinton, who is now running to succeed him.
Bryan Pagliano, a State Department employee who helped set up the server for Clinton, sent a letter Monday to the House Select Committee on Benghazi notifying its Republican leadership that he would invoke the Fifth Amendment during an upcoming hearing.
The Fifth Amendment grants Americans the right to remain silent in order to avoid incriminating themselves during investigations.
Other current and former State Department employees, including Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills, are set to testify later this week.
Pagliano worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign as the information technology director. He then continued on to the State Department, where he served as special projects manager for the department’s CTO until February 2013.
H/T CNN| Illustration by Max Fleishman