A person who pleads the Fifth Amendment in a matter related to their employment is effectively stating that he cannot do his job anymore. This is particularly true when it comes to a public employee, but my statement holds true in a private context as well.
A perfect example would be an employee who is questioned about an incident in the workplace as part of an HR investigation or something related to financial irregularities. The employee is well within his rights to refuse to cooperate -- basically "pleading the Fifth" even if he has committed no crime. But that employee can -- and will -- be summarily fired because his first obligation is to his EMPLOYER, not to himself. This is a clear case of an employee facing a conflict of interest that effectively violates his employer's trust.
This is even more critical in the case of a public employee, because that employee's first obligation should be to the PUBLIC, not a co-worker or a superior in a government bureaucracy.
Let's go back to the Flynn case. The guy was the National Security Advisor. If the FBI called him up and said they wanted to meet with him to discuss some matter or another, he had every right to refuse his cooperation. But he couldn't possibly keep his job. There's an EXPECTATION that people in public service will cooperate with law enforcement.
There's an EXPECTATION that people in public service will cooperate with law enforcement.
Until "law enforcement" can prove to We the People that it is not itself corrupt, and that it is not interested in producing process crimes for political purposes, that expectation must be rejected.