Posted on 06/07/2016 3:57:49 PM PDT by Nachum
The State Department aide who helped set up Hillary Clinton’s private email server asked a federal court to withhold details about his immunity deal with the FBI on Tuesday afternoon.
A federal judge had ordered Bryan Pagliano, Clinton’s personal IT aide, to turn over information about an immunity deal he reached with the FBI in connection to the investigation of Clinton’s private email server.
Pagliano filed a motion to seal the document on Tuesday afternoon, which could keep details of the agreement shielded from the public if approved by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan.
Pagliano filed the motion in response to an ongoing lawsuit against the State Department by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.
Judge Sullivan recently ruled that Judicial Watch’s attorneys could depose Pagliano in the case, but the former IT aide indicated he would exercise his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent during the questioning. Pagliano’s attorneys are also fighting to prevent the deposition from being videotaped.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
Pagliano filed a motion to seal the document on Tuesday afternoon,
Bull crap! Pagliano’s atty filed the motion under direct order of the Clinton Crime Machine.
________
Respectfully, that does not seem to be the case. Pag. is cooperating with the FBI. He is the ONLY one to have a separate lawyer not aligned with the others. Pag. filed the FBI immunity agreement under seal at the request of the FBI. NO doubt about it. Keep in mind that there are two separate cases, different players.
Yeah, you don't get an offer of immunity unless you have "proffered" something in return. Typically it's pretty big, as in you promise to tell everything you know, down to the last detail, and you promise to be absolutely truthful, hold nothing back, and commit no lies of omission.
And if they catch you lying or holding out, they can go to the judge and get the whole immunity deal thrown out and put you on trial for the original charge, or a more severe charge.
It's all part of that famous prosecutor game: The First To Squeal Gets The Deal.
“Doesn’t an immunity deal mean you agreed to testify in return for not being charged?”
Yes, but there is limited immunity and full immunity. Haven’t heard which one Pagliano received.
The Butcher of Benghazi: “OH please, Mr. Judge, you can’t do this right now, it will hurt my chances of becoming President...you have to wait, oh please,....and if you don’t you won’t have a job or a life”
The Judge: “Go to your ‘safe space’ and shut up, this is my court room not yours’ he would never say....
“No, that’ wrong. The FBI does not want him testifying in the JW civil case and thereby alerting the Clinton team to what he is saying to the FBI in the criminal probe. It would be bad for us if he is forced to give testimony in the civil FOIA case brought by JW until such time as Clinton herself has been questioned in the criminal probe.”
I think you’re probably right about that, Continental Op. However, I suspect JW has as it’s aim to get the info out there in time to influence the election (i.e., kill Hill’s chances) as an even more important objective than getting her in an orange jumpsuit. Who knows how long the FBI case will take and whether the Dept. of Injustice will do anything with it.
Sure is taking a long time.
Maybe after the election something will come out. Elections are important to this judge.
You may be right, but I’d think HRC would have high interest in keeping it quiet. I should, but don’t have much faith in the FBI and Comey on this matter.
Reminds me of the nursery rhyme “There was a crooked woman, who had a crooked spouse,
She has a crooked staff,
He may be worried about the Clintons learning exactly what he’s been offered.
They are giving my people a bad name.
D.C.
True, but he’s doing a helluva lot more to get this crap into the sunlight than Gowdy.
Recently he got the IRS to divulge which conservative groups it was giving “special attention” to....again, a helluva lot more than Issa did!
I’d be curious to see if any Freeper lawyers can explain the rationale for this.
After all the purges, do we have any left?
That's not good...
Looks like the deck is stacked...
Crumbs.
Excellent explanation of why the judge wants to see the actual agreement:
Judge to Pagliano: Show me the immunity
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/06/04/judge-to-pagliano-show-me-the-immunity/
Put simply, the Fifth Amendment can only be used when there is a risk of self-incrimination for a prosecutable criminal offense. It doesn’t apply in a civil case unless the testimony in the civil case could also result in criminal prosecution. Pagliano and his attorneys wanted to make the case that his testimony in the civil action brought by Judicial Watch could end up as evidence in a criminal trial against Pagliano … which tells us that there is something besides smoke in the e-mail scandal.
The problem for Pagliano is that the Department of Justice has already granted him a form of immunity to get his testimony on the scandal. A grant of immunity usually negates Fifth Amendment claims, depending on the scope of the immunity [see update below]. Transactional immunity is a complete Get Out of Jail Free card, which means there is no risk at all of prosecution, and so the Fifth is mooted and the witness has to testify or face contempt charges that could keep him in prison for a long time. Use and derivative use immunity is more limited, but it still keeps the testimony and any evidence derived from it from being used in a prosecution.
In some states, a court can only compel testimony in a broad application with transactional immunity. The bad news for Pagliano is that, in federal court, either type of immunity is sufficient to compel testimony, as the Supreme Court ruled in Kastigar. If the DoJ restricted the grant of immunity to specific points, then that might enter into a ruling on a Fifth Amendment claim, which is likely why the judge demanded to see the agreement rather than just ordering Pagliano to submit to the deposition. It’s still doubtful that a Fifth Amendment claim will work, however, since the lawsuit is essentially focusing on issues that are within the scope of the FBI probe.
Update:
From twitter: You also have to prove there is jeopardy in Criminal cases to assert 5th if you are witness.
HA:
I skipped over this because I was thinking in the context of Pagliano’s position, where there is clearly some criminal jeopardy in the FBI probe, but that’s true (if the invocation of the Fifth is challenged, which it is in this case). Even more, the need for Pagliano to prove criminal jeopardy means they have to argue that there are grounds for prosecution in the email scandal. That should be fun to watch, too.
Then I saw him on yt and he's somebody I pass on usually. He's a Bernie supporter so can't be trusted.
Now Paul Thompson obviously seems to have a slight bias against Hillary and the rest of the cadre (it's really shocking when you read the scope of it, don't know if I can plow through it all). But I don't get a sense he would support Trump.
Was surprised to hear Brokaw's brief oped this evening. He says Hillary is going to have to work very hard to get the young, get above the email scandal and other problem areas for her campaign. It was spot on. Usually he is all left all the time.
If somebody did help Pagliano at State IT or he got access, what would be the easiest way to transfer those 22 SAP emails to Hillary's server or other sensitive communications? Hard to say and no proof he was involved with those anyway.
Now the only other thing, the FBI is not in a good situation with everybody trying to second guess what is going on which is only natural. I suspect there is a lot of pressure, maybe some taking sides, just hard to tell if it will be allowed to come to a normal conclusion, be fair and truthful, or Obama will put a stop to it and force them to classify everything. Dirty business the way our govt operates.
You are right to be concerned about Comey, and everybody else. I am too.
But in terms of what’s going on the last couple of days, none of it is bad.
The very best news would be if the court orders the document to remain sealed, and then rules Pagliano does not have to testify at this point in the civil case. That civil case ain’t going away, plenty of time for that later. It’s a FOIA case based upon the Benghazi talking points. But the FBI probe will be done soon, in weeks, probably. Time enough then to get what JW wants.
How is Hillary’s cough today?
Pagliano was given limited immunity. See the aticle at the link. He could still be charged.
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