(160202) -- IOWA, Feb. 2, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the United States, Jan. 30, 2016. Hillary Clinton won Bernie Sanders with a razor-thin lead in the Iowa caucuses, according to results announced by Iowa Democratic Party Tuesday.
(Xinhua/Yin Bogu)
Washington, June 2 (IANS) A former State Department IT specialist who was involved in setting up and maintaining Hillary Clinton's private email server has planned to invoke the Fifth Amendment at a deposition next week, refusing to answer any questions.
The move comes even after the staffer, Bryan Pagliano, accepted an immunity deal with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) earlier this year and began cooperating with their investigation into the server, CNN reported.
Pagliano was then subpoenaed by the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch to testify as part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit they filed against the State Department. He is one of at least seven witnesses the group is interviewing over the coming weeks in that case.
In a court filing submitted on Wednesday, Pagliano's attorneys said their client is now "caught up in a lawsuit with an undisputed political agenda" and asked that the deposition, scheduled to take place on June 6, not be recorded.
His attorneys added, "Pagliano will invoke his right under the Fifth Amendment and decline to testify at the deposition noticed for June 6, 2016."
"Asserting the Fifth Amendment in a civil procedure like this has its implications," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told CNN.
"We're going to have to grapple with as best we can."
Pagliano, who was hired by the State Department after a stint as IT director for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, was paid separately by the Clintons to perform work on the server, located at their home in Chappaqua, New York.
He also pled the Fifth last year to avoid answering questions from the House Select Committee on Benghazi -- a congressional panel set up to investigate a 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
