The IT specialist who set up Hillary Clinton's controversial private email was paid with taxpayer dollars after he helped the former Secretary of State skirt the law.

And Bryan Pagliano is finding his own words could be coming back to bite him. 'Some things that look like good ideas…may actually have bad consequences,' he told an IT webinar last year.

Pagliano, 39, was taken on by the State Department when Clinton was appointed the nation's top diplomat in 2009. He had previously worked for her presidential campaign.

Now the married father of two, says he will plead the Fifth Amendment to prevent him testifying to Congress about his work at Clinton's home in Chappaqua, NY.

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Friends to the end: Bryan Pagliano was working for the State Department when he helped install Hillary's private server. Pagliano, and his wife Carrie, a physical therapist at Georgetown University Hospital, looked very chummy with the former Secretary of State in this Facebook photo

All in the family: Bill Clinton looks pretty cozy with Pagliano and his wife too. Pagliano reported worked on the former Secretary's email server in Chappaqua

And that action has led to controversy as Republican leaders start to question whether he was doing private work for Hillary while on the public dime.

Pagliano had been scheduled to testify behind closed doors before the Republican-led House Committee on Benghazi — which is probing the deaths of four Americans including US Ambassador Chris Stevens, during an attack on the diplomatic compound in the Libyan city on September 11 2012.

That committee's investigations uncovered the fact that Clinton had set up the private 'homebrew' server.

But Pagliano's attorney, Mark MacDougall, has now written to committee chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, telling him that his client will plead the Fifth Amendment — which allows citizens to keep quiet rather than incriminate themselves.

'While we understand that Mr. Pagliano's response to this subpoena may be controversial in the current political environment, we hope that members of the Select Committee will respect our client's right to invoke the protections of the Constitution,' MacDougall wrote.

'For these reasons, we respectfully request that the Select Committee excuse Mr. Pagliano from personally appearing on Sept. 10, 2015.'

Republicans are expected to insist that Pagliano turns up — which would lead to him answering all their questions with a statement saying that he was taking the Fifth.

Bryan Pagliano is finding his own words could be coming back to bite him. 'Some things that look like good ideas…may actually have bad consequences,' he told an IT webinar last year

Pleading the Fifth: Pagliano won't answer questions from Congressmen, his lawyers said. Clinton is pictured above at a rally in Cleveland, Ohio, last week

Clinton is said to be upset by Pagliano's decision. A campaign aide told ABC News that she 'has made every effort to answer questions and be as helpful as possible, and has encouraged her aides, current and former, to do the same, including Bryan Pagliano.'

Another aide told The New York Times the decision to plead the Fifth was 'both understandable and disappointing to us, because we believe he has every reason to be transparent about his IT assistance.'

'We had hoped Bryan would also agree to answer any questions from the committee and had recently encouraged him to grant the committee's request for an interview,' the aide added.

Pagliano, lives with his wife Carrie — a physical therapist at Georgetown University Hospital — in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Va.

He worked as IT director for Clinton's campaign in the 2008 Democratic primaries, when she lost the party's nomination to Barack Obama.

He set up the private server while still working for Hillary Clinton for President. But within three months of Obama appointing the former First Lady to his Cabinet, he jumped to a new post as special advisor at the Department of State.

On his LinkedIn page, he says his responsibilities included 'industry analysis, internal and external communications, creating strategic roadmaps, technical roadmaps, collaborating across security, budget and operations to develop, execute and measure special projects.'

He also said he personally 'developed and delivered briefs to senior leadership on various technologies, technology service deliver and technology security issues both internally and inter agency.'

Pagliano, 39, was taken on by the State Department when Clinton was appointed the nation's top diplomat in 2009. He had previously worked for her presidential campaign. Now the married father of two, says he will plead the Fifth Amendment to prevent him testifying to Congress about his work at Clinton's home

But questions are now being asked about how secure Clinton's home-based server actually was and whether it could have been accessed by foreign powers.

It was run by Denver-based Platte River Networks. Ex-employees told Daily Mail Online last month that the small 'mom-and-pop' company was run from a loft apartment with servers housed in a bathroom closet.

'It was not very high security. We didn't even have an alarm,' former Platte River worker Tera Dadiotis said.

'Do I think Platte River was capable of managing Hillary Clinton's network? Absolutely. At our location of business at the time, no,' she added.

Gowdy and his committee wanted to quiz Pagliano on the set-up of the server.

On Thursday Gowdy refused to comment on Pagliano's decision to plead the Fifth. He said he had no reaction to the news. 'You'll have to ask him,' the congressman said.

Pagliano left the Department of State in 2013 to take up a new post as research director for the Washington-based IT company Gartner, specializing in government practice.

It was in that role that he spoke to a webinar about the dangers of cost-cutting in the IT world. He made his comment that 'Some things that look like good ideas…may actually have bad consequences,' pointing out how the atmosphere at the failed energy company Enron led to its demise.

Pagliano's decision not to answer questions from Congress gained support from Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Benghazi Committee.

Cummings wrote that he is not surprised that Pagliano would wish to take the Fifth given what he called the 'wild and unsubstantiated accusations' against Clinton.

Cummings said subpoenaing a low-level aide showed Gowdy was using the committee to smear Clinton in the run-up to next year's presidential election.

'Although multiple legal experts agree there is no evidence of criminal activity, it is certainly understandable that this witness's attorneys advised him to assert his Fifth Amendment rights, especially given the onslaught of wild and unsubstantiated accusations by Republican presidential candidates, members of Congress and others based on false leaks about the investigation,' Cummings said, according to the Washington Post.

'Their insatiable desire to derail Secretary Clinton's presidential campaign at all costs has real consequences for any serious congressional effort,' Cummings added.