At any time. Its a very important hearing were having examining state department and federal records. As we know, Hillary Clinton as secretary of state for four years, roughly four years, helped create what is reported to be one of the biggest Security Breaches in the history of the state department, an absolute mess. We have witnesses vital to our understanding the problem, how we got into the mess and how were potentially going to clean it up. Joining us will be mr. Justin cooper, a former employee of bill clinton and the Clinton Foundation. Mr. Cooper purchased the first server used by secretary clinton and had it installed in the basement of private residence in chappaqua, new york. He also registered the domain name clintonemail. Com. The same day, the secretary clintons confirmation hearings began in the senate mr. Cooper described his role managing secretary clintons private server as the, quote, Customer Service face, end quote. He explained to the fbi he helped secretary clinton set up her mobile devices. When she finished with them, he would break them in half or destroy them with a hammer. Interesting mr. Cooper was never employed by the state department while he managed the server she used to conduct the business of the government. Mr. Cooper needed upgrading to the server for better service. He turned to mr. Bryan pagliano who worked for secretary clintons 2008 president ial campaign and was in the process of closing out the campaigns i. T. Assets when mr. Cooper called to discuss a new server for the secretary. To put that new server together, mr. Pagliano used one from her campaign. Anything else he needed was evidently bought off the shelf. In march 2009 they met in the clintons home in chappaqua, new york, and installed the new server reportedly in the basement. Unlike mr. Cooper, mr. Pagliano went on to become a state department employee. Just a few months after installing the server, mr. Pagliano was hired at the state department as gs 15 schedule c. Public reports suggest mr. Pagliano received a state Department Check and was paid by the clintons, none of which he reported on Public Disclosure forms as required. A recent office of Inspector General report, mr. Paglianos supervisor at the state department, quote, questioned whether he could support a private client during work hours given his capacity as a fulltime government employee, end quote. Mr. Pagliano left the state department in 2013 just as Hillary Clinton, secretary clinton, left. When responsibility for the servers turned over left. When the responsibility for the servers turned over to our next two witnesses, things started to get a little bit more complicated. Mr. Bill thornton and Paul Combetta both worked for Platte River Networks. Platte river was hired by secretary clinton in early 2013 to host the email server after mr. Pagliano had been working on it. Prn, plat River Networks, managed on the managed server to its own server, which was located at a data center in secaucus, new jersey. Things with Platte River Networks get complicated in march 2015 according to fbi report. In early march 2015, New York Times revealed secretary clinton used a private email account while at the state department. The House Select Committee on benghazi sends both a preservation request and subpoena following the news. According to the fbi report, that preservation request is forwarded to prn, Platte River Network by secretary mills, chief of staff and current attorney. In his first interview with the fbi, evidently, he had no memory of the request. In a subsequent interview, he not only remembered that request but understood it meant not to delete any of secretary clintons emails. Then something happened. At conference because between Platte River Networks, mills, and one of the attorneys. Once again, his story changes. In his first fbi interview he said he deleted no emails of secretary clinton at the time. Later on he stated he not only deleted archives of email on the server but used bleach bit to delete her pst files on the server. At the same time a number of manual deletions were made on the backups of platte river server. We appreciate the Witnesses Today and hope they can ul lime illuminate the situation and help us understand. As i said before, this is one of the biggest breaches in the history of the state department. We have a duty and obligation to investigate it. Now recognize the Ranking Member mr. Cummings for his Opening Statement. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Today is our third third emergency hearing about secretary clintons emails in four business days. Third in four days. Emergency. I believe this committee is abusing taxpayer dollars and authority of congress in an astonishing onslaught of political attacks to damage secretary Clintons Campaign for president of the United States of america. This is the first time in my 20 years of congress i personally witness the oversight power of this committee abused in such a transparently political manner to directly influence a president ial campaign. The point of todays hearing is to investigate baseless republican accusations that secretary clinton or her aides ordered the destruction of emails to conceal them from investigators. The most important fact for todays hearing is that the fbi already investigated these accusations and thoroughly debunked them. They interviewed witnesses, examined forensic evidence and concluded that these accusations have no merit. Fbi director comey stated, and i quote, we found no evidence that any of the additional workrelated emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them, end of quote. He went on to say, and i quote, we did not find any evidence of evil intent, or intent to obstruct justice. Thats the fbi director, a man who had been a lifelong republican, a man who was applauded by republicans as one of the most honorable Public Servants that ever existed. So he went on and emphasized in a memo to staff just last week, and i quote, the case itself was not a cliffhanger, end of quote. Of course republicans did not like the answers that the fbi director gave, so they simply manufactured todays hearing out of thin air. This entire hearing is a contrived campaign photoop. Here is a playbook the republicans are using. Step one, publicly accuse the witnesses of criminal activity no matter how ludicrous, then refer them to u. S. Attorneys office for investigation. Step one. Step two, the next day invite the same witnesses to an emergency hearing on those criminal accusations and rush to issue a flurry of unilateral subpoenas demanding they testify. No debate. No vote. Step three. Express false outrage when these witnesses this is a playbook. Express false outrage when these witnesses, who you just accused of criminal activity, take advice from their counsel to assert their fifth amendment right to not testify. There you have it. Presto, instant photo op. Thats what happened to them despite the fact of career Law Enforcement agents at the fbi just unanimously recommended against bringing any criminal charges in this case. Keep in mind director comey said this was an Allstar Group of fbi agents, an Allstar Group of fbi agents said unanimously that these gentlemen should not be charged. Then theres Bryan Pagliano, the i. T. Specialist who worked on secretary clintons email system. Mr. Pagliano has already been interviewed by the fbi. The fbi provided us the results of his interview. But the republicans disagree with the fbis conclusions, so here we are. Mr. Pagliano has already asserted his fifth amendment rights before this congress. He did this when chairman gowdy issued his own unilateral subpoena to force him to appear before the Benghazi Committee on the same issue. Of course i sat as a Ranking Member on that select committee. Obviously, mr. Pagliano was concerned about the criminal accusations republicans were making, so his attorney advised him to assert the fifth amendment. Theres no legitimate reason for republicans to force mr. Pagliano to appear yet again before Congress Just to assert his fifth amendment rights one more time. How many times will republicans do this . Will they force him to take the fifth in front of the Science Committee next . How about the Homeland Security or Intelligence Committee . Should we have them go to those committees, too . This is an absolute abuse of authority. Now, chairman gowdy and i disagree without many things, but i give him full credit for one thing that he did. At least when he subpoenaed mr. Pagliano, he did it in a private session. He did not force mr. Pagliano to assert the fifth in public just to humiliate him, and i respect mr. Gowdy for that. Let me say this as plainly as i can. If this committees goal were just to get mr. Pagliano or other witnesses on the record asserting their fifth amendment rights, we could do that easily in a private session just like mr. Gowdy did with mr. Pagliano a year ago. Theres no legitimate reason to force mr. Pagliano or the other witnesses who were subpoenaed for this hearing to assert the fifth in open session. Theres only an illegitimate reason to get a photo op that republicans think could harm Hillary Clintons president ial campaign. Second they, they think mr. Pagliano or mr. Combetta should testify before us because they received limited use of immunity for their statements to the fbi. But no lawyers worth their salt are going to are going to let their clients testify before a Congressional Committee whose chairman just sent another referral for criminal prosecution, no matter how frivolous the accusations are. They just arent going to do it. Pursuing these kinds of blatantly political attacks undermines the integrity of our committee, the congressional process and the Constitutional Rights that are supposed to protect our citizens against unsubstantiated accusations just like these. So with that, mr. Chairman, i yield back and thank you. Ill hold the record open for five legislative days for any members who would like to submit a written statement. Id also ask unanimous consent to allow lamar smith, science space and Technology Committee to join our committee and would be happy to also entertain a request for uc from the democratic side if they would like to join us as well. Without objection, so ordered to allow mr. Smith to join us today. We now like to recognize our witnesses. Do note the absence of mr. Pagliano. Let me address that. Let the record reflect mr. Pagliano is not present at the witness table. The committee invited him in a letter dated september 7th, 2016. Mr. Pagliano informed the committee through his attorneys he might assert his fifth amendment privilege. I authorized the subpoena for mr. Paglianos testimony. On september 8th, 2016, the committee transmitted a subpoena to mr. Paglianos attorney and the subpoena required his presence here today. Mr. Pagliano is uniquely qualified to provide testimony that will help the committee better understand secretary clintons use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary at the state department among other things. The committee invited him to appear with the expectation his testimony will advance the committees investigation which seeks further information about the setup and management of secretary clintons account and other technical aspects of the account. I take my responsibility as a Committee Chairman seriously, especially the decision to issue a subpoena. Its a serious matter. Mr. Pagliano chose to evade the subpoena dually issued. I will consult with counsel and my colleagues to consider the full range of options available to address mr. Paglianos failure to appear. It is vital to hear from us because its our understanding while mr. Pagliano worked in the i. T. Department at the state department nearly four years, virtually every single email mr. Pagliano had has suddenly disappeared. Theres Something Like less than 20 emails this is a guy who worked at the i. T. Department at the state department. Things that make you go hmm. Really . All his emails suddenly disappeared . Mr. Pagliano is important because he was receiving a paycheck from the clintons but failed to disclose that on his financial forms. Wed like to give him an opportunity to answer that question. We also believe he entered into an immunity agreement. Youd think somebody would sing like a song bird if you got immunity from the fbi. What are you afraid of . We wanted to hear from him. Thats why we issued a subpoena. There are a number of things we would like to ask him, and he should be here. When you are served a subpoena by the United States congress, that is not optional. That is not an optional activity. Hes not here today. Mr. Chairman . Mr. Cummings. Lets make sure we have a complete picture here. Last night the chairman sent another letter to mr. Pagliano saying our committee might go into executive session to accept his fifth amendment no, i did not say that . What did you say . I want this committee to be open and transparent. We do everything we can possibly do out in the open. That is the american way. Thats the way this committee is going to be run. Chairman yield . Sure. Its my understanding mr. Paglianos lawyers sent a letter saying they felt this was abuse of process and nothing but to embarrass him. He said if he wanted to go into executive session and be given immunity, hed be happy to. I just want the committee to have full breadth of what happened here. He said hed be happy to appear. So is there i take it the consultation youre going to do is going to go into whether or not were going to give immunity, have an executive session, and when might we expect the decisions. He made the decision not to be here, and there are consequences for that. Again, the integrity of the house of representatives, this is not an optional activity. You dont just get to say, hey, well, i decided not to do that. Well look at the full range of options. If anybody is under any illusion im going to let go of this and let it sail off into the sunset, they are very illadvised. Chairman yield . Yes. Im looking at your letter dated september 12, 2016, to mark j. Mcdougal. You say in this letter, and i quote, the committee requires mr. Paglianos appearance because, among other reasons, the possibility that he will waive or choose not to assert the privilege as to some or all questions, the possibility the committee will agree to hear his testimony in executive session, and the possibility that the committee will immunize his testimony pursuant to 18 usc section 6005. Thats what i was inquiring about. Thats your letter. To clarify. It requires his presence to have those types of discussions. When he doesnt show up, that option is off the table. You have to be here to have that discussion. Mr. Chairman, just a point of parliamentary inquiry. You said it is not an option for the witness who refused to testify. He was duly presented and served with a subpoena from this committee, is that correct . Yes. And one of the options would be possible contempt of congress among the options that we have available. At what point would that be appropriate to consider the options . In a future hearing or a request to the chair . We will consider all options. I would like to continue on with this hearing given the three witnesses that are here. They are here. Rather than unduly delay the rest of the hearing dealing with mr. Pagliano, well complete the hearing and then look at the options. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Just one thing, mr. Chairman. Are we going to do that after the hearing . What you just said youre going to do . Were going to consider the options considering mr. Pagliano is not in attendance after he was issued a subpoena. Well deal with that after the conclusion. One of those things we might consider is going into executive session since mr. Pagliano said he would be happy to come in executive session . Would that be one . I will entertain all of the potential requests, but im telling you i have no intention of going into executive session when he thumbs his nose at the congress, wastes this committees time and u. S. Marshals have to make him show. I just want to understand as well as i can. Did the chairman issue a criminal referral on mr. Pagliano . When we heard that the fbi had not looked at anything secretary clinton had testified under oath before congress, we did give a referral. And thats outstanding . We dont know. We dont know. Well, you issued it. We issued it, but here is my point. Here is my point. You issued a criminal referral for an individual, and then you asked him to come in here and testify before congress. Let me clarify that would require him to surrender his fifth amendment rights. If youre referring him and putting him under threat of criminal prosecution and then asking him to come in here, thats not fair. The immunity doesnt cover him. Because your referral for criminal prosecution came after the fact and beyond the limited purpose for which he was granted immunity, sir. There was no criminal referral on mr. Pagliano. Did we refer the comments and issues that mr. Comey as director of fbi brought up . Absolutely we did. He said he required us it puts him at risk what we have done as a community and through you on this referral is put him under threat of criminal prosecution because of the issue that youre investigating. I understand that. I understand that. But it puts him in jeopardy coming before this committee while that criminal referral is in existence. Im just saying hes an american citizen. I know the constitution gets in the way of the commit