Ex-Hillary Clinton aide refuses to appear at email hearing But an adviser to Bill Clinton who helped set up email server testifies at House Oversight session.

Two outside information technology consultants involved in handling Hillary Clinton's private email setup repeatedly invoked their 5th Amendment rights at a House hearing Tuesday, while a former State Department information technology official defied a subpoena and failed to show up for the session.

However, a former close aide to Bill Clinton who played a key role in setting up Hillary Clinton's email system — Justin Cooper — testified publicly on the arrangement for the first time at the House Oversight Committee hearing.


Tech specialists Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton of the Denver-based Platte River Networks repeatedly cited their constitutional right against self-incrimination in response to questions from Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz about security issues related to Clinton's private email server.

Meanwhile, former State Department technology adviser Bryan Pagliano did not show up at all, leaving an empty seat behind his name-card at the witness table. His lawyer said Pagliano was willing to invoke his 5th Amendment rights in a closed session, but not an open one.

Chaffetz excused Combetta and Thornton after they invoked their 5th Amendment rights in response to several questions, but the chairman sounded angry about Pagliano's refusal to appear.

"He made the decision not to appear and there are consequences for that," the chairman said. "We'll look at the full range of options, but if anybody's under any illusion I'm going to let go of this and let it just sail off into the sunset, they are very ill advised. ... I have no intention of going into executive session when he thumbs his nose at the United States Congress and wastes its time."

A top adviser to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said the witnesses' decisions to rely on their 5th Amendment rights reflects poorly on Clinton.

"The fact that the individuals who maintained Hillary Clinton’s secret email server pleaded the Fifth shows once again why she can’t be trusted in the White House," Trump adviser Jason Miller said. "Clinton’s server clearly ran afoul of the law and these developments only further demonstrate that she lacks the judgment to be president."

Democrats argued that the hearing — the panel's third about Clinton's email in recent days — amounted to a partisan attack on Clinton's presidential bid.

"I believe this Committee is abusing taxpayer dollars and the authority of Congress in an astonishing onslaught of political attacks to damage Secretary Clinton’s campaign for president," ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings said. "This entire hearing is a contrived campaign photo op."

Cummings also noted that Pagliano already invoked his 5th Amendment rights in a closed session of the House Benghazi Committee.

"There's no legitimate reason for Republicans to force Mr. Pagliano to appear yet again before Congress just to assert his 5th Amendment rights," Cummings said. "This is an absolute abuse of authority."

During about two-and-a-half hours of questioning Tuesday, Cooper said he became involved in setting up Clinton with personal email service as she was moving from the Senate to the State Department in January 2009.

"Secretary Clinton had personal email on her BlackBerry and was looking for a new solution to use personal email," Cooper said.

While Cooper offered some testimony highlighting the risks of Clinton's email setup, he also appeared to debunk some GOP theories about the case.

Cooper said unauthorized efforts to log onto the Clinton server occurred "with some frequency," leading the Clinton team to implement new measures overseen by Pagliano. "As there was an increases in the failed login attempts, we made the Secret Service aware and they made some recommendations," Cooper said.

However, Cooper said he wasn't familiar with all the techniques Pagliano implemented over time to address those worries. Democrats noted that the FBI found no evidence the Clinton system was successfully hacked, but Cooper said that if someone successfully guessed Clinton's password there might have been no trace of such a hack.

Cooper also indicated that some of the computers he set up wound up in secure information spaces at the Clintons' homes, but said he did not recall working on the devices once they were in those rooms.

While some have speculated that the Clintons were paying Cooper's legal bills, he said he's paying them himself. He also said that while he destroyed old Clinton BlackBerrys, he always sought to back up that information and move it to a new device.

"It was not in any way to destroy or hide any information at all," Cooper testified. "In fact, the opposite would be the case in that I was going out of my way to preserve all the information that was on those devices."

Asked why he sometimes smashed up the old electronics with a hammer, the longtime Clinton aide said: "I think it’s practical to not just throw an old device into a garbage receptacle where someone might pick it up and try to use it."

Cooper said the impetus for putting Hillary Clinton's email on a private server came from her longtime aide Huma Abedin, who indicated to him it was preferable to have an in-house system maintained by Clinton's aides rather that one handled by a commercial service. However, FBI Director James Comey indicated in previous testimony that decision was ill-advised because it's hard for a handful of aides or consultants to match the large, full-time security teams at big internet firms.

As the only witness to offer substantive answers Tuesday, Cooper won praise from Chaffetz, but the chairman said Cooper's unfamiliarity with security measures demonstrated how unwise it was for the Clinton team to try to manage its own server system.

"You get huge brownie points from the committee for showing up and having the guts to actually answer questions. We're very grateful for that," the chairman said. "Here's the problem: it's you, Mr. Cooper, with no experience, no dual authentication, no encryption, up against the Chinese and the Russians. Who do you think's going to win that one? That's what scares the living daylights out of us."