Clinton Email Witness to Take the Fifth

At 5:22 Friday evening, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan issued a court order postponing the deposition of Bryan Pagliano, the Clinton State Department IT official who reportedly provided support for the Clinton email system, “until further order of the Court:”

Minute Order. The deposition of non-party Bryan Pagliano is hereby postponed until further order of the Court. Counsel for Mr. Pagliano shall file a Memorandum of Law addressing the legal authority upon which Mr. Pagliano relies to assert his Fifth Amendment rights in this civil proceeding, including requisite details pertaining to the scope of Mr. Pagliano's reported immunity agreement with the Government. Mr. Pagliano's Memorandum of Law, along with a copy of his reported immunity agreement, shall be filed no later than Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 5:00 p.m. The parties are ordered to file responsive memoranda of law no later than Friday, June 10, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. Mr. Pagliano shall file a reply memorandum no later than Monday, June 13, 2016 at 5:00 p.m. Signed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on June 3, 2016.

Pagliano had been scheduled to testify Monday as part of Judicial Watch’s court-ordered discovery.

In last minute court filings last week in federal court, his lawyers announced that he would be asserting his Fifth Amendment rights in answer to every question from Judicial Watch attorneys. In addition, Pagliano wants no audio or video recording of this testimony.

We have opposed this effort to limit the record before U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the federal court judge who granted Judicial Watch the right to depose Pagliano.

As our attorneys argued to the court: Mr. Pagliano asserts that there is no proper reason to videotape the deposition as he intends to assert his rights under the Fifth Amendment. On the contrary, the video will be helpful to the Court in assessing the demeanor and credibility of Mr. Pagliano if and when he chooses to assert the Fifth Amendment.

You may have seen the massive public interest in this new development. As CBS News pointed out in story headlined, “Clinton staffer pleads the Fifth after Clinton says she is "delighted" that he would cooperate”: Although the former staffer was granted immunity from prosecution in the criminal investigation of Secretary Clinton's email server earlier this year, Pagliano previously agreed to cooperate with the FBI in its investigation.

During Clinton's appearance on "Face the Nation" on March 6, 2016, Clinton told John Dickerson that she was "delighted" that Pagliano had agreed to cooperate.

“I'm delighted that he has agreed to cooperate, as everyone else has. And I think that we will be moving toward a resolution of this,” the Democratic frontrunner stated.

Let me just say how honored I am to be working with such an able group of attorneys, investigators, and our other hard-working staff at Judicial Watch. You can see that our team is managing public interest litigation that has extraordinary public interest.

For all this work, we are attacked by the Clinton machine and its allies. But we won’t be deterred from our court-ordered fact finding. As The New York Post editorialized, Judicial Watch is “the watchdog that has driven most of the key revelations about Clinton’s email transgressions.”

Tom Fitton is the president of Judicial Watch. He is a nationally recognized expert on government corruption. A former talk radio and television host and analyst, Tom is well known across the country as a national spokesperson for the conservative cause. He has been quoted in Time, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and most every other major newspaper in the country. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.