Clinton paid State Dept. staffer to maintain private server

by Jordain Carney - 09/05/15 10:07 AM ET

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally paid a State Department staffer to maintain her private email server, according to The Washington Post.

A campaign official told The Post that the while unusual, the setup allowed Clinton to ensure taxpayer money wasn’t spent on the private server.

{mosads}Questions about Clinton’s use a private email server during her time at the helm of the State Department have dogged her presidential campaign, with an FBI investigation and multiple probes launched by members of Congress.

Clinton paid Bryan Pagliano, a former campaign staffer, $5,000 before he joined the State Department, according to a 2009 financial disclosure form. But a campaign official told The Post that Clinton kept personally paying him to maintain the server even after he joined the State Department, which he did not report on financial disclosure forms.

The Clinton campaign released a statement Saturday on Pagliano, saying that he was “hired by the Clinton family as a consultant in order to help out periodically with the management of the system in Chappaqua that hosted the family’s emails.”

Pagliano is reportedly not cooperating with investigations from FBI officials or the State Department. His lawyers suggested this week that he would assert his constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment to not answer questions from the House Select Committee on Benghazi because of the “current political environment.”

A spokesperson for the Senate Judiciary Committee told The Post that Pagliano also declined to speak with the committee after his lawyer was told that he could be questioned about any outside employment.

Lawmakers could compel him to testify by offering him immunity.

– Updated at 12:23 p.m.

Tags Email Hillary Clinton Hillary Rodham Clinton