Getty Senate Republicans want immunity for Clinton's former IT staffer

Two Senate chairmen want to give immunity to Hillary Clinton’s former top IT staffer, who’s planning to invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to answer incriminating questions from congressional investigators.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) hope an immunity agreement would allow Bryan Pagliano to testify about the former secretary of state's unusual email server setup. They sent a letter to Pagliano and his lawyer this week asking him to “make yourself available to provide information.”


The committees need "the unique information you likely have in order to exercise their oversight functions under the Constitution, which are unrelated to any potential prosecution or criminal inquiry,” the joint letter says. “Thus, the committees have the authority to obtain an immunity order, to acquire the information they need, while also protecting your right against self-incrimination.”

The two senators also asked Pagliano’s attorney to “meet with the committees' staff to explore how to obtain the unique information you possess while respecting your constitutional rights, such as the possibility of a proffer session so that we can better understand what your testimony would be without any waiver of your rights.”

The 2008 Clinton campaign staffer, who followed Clinton to the State Department to oversee the special server, said through his lawyers that he would assert his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself when subpoenaed by the House Benghazi Committee. He’s refusing to answer the committee’s and FBI’s questions about what he knew of the technology.





But immunity could change all that and make it easier for him to answer the panels' questions. But it would also prevent any federal charges related to the email matter from being brought against him the future.

That’s what happened in the case of staffers involved in the Iran-Contra affair. Judges dropped charges against Oliver North, a key figure who opened up about the weapons scandal, because he had testified before Congress under immunity. When the Justice Department brought charges against him, officials were unable to prove that they did not use any of his testimony to make their case.

Since then, Congress has been leery of giving immunity to just anybody.

But both chairmen seem to think it would be worth the offer.

“My job is to get information,” was all Grassley would say to POLITICO when asked about the matter.

“I think it’s appropriate that we have those discussions” about immunity, Johnson said in a short interview off the Senate floor Tuesday evening. “He has information that we need to have, partly because of the national security implications of Secretary Clinton’s actions.”

