OPINION:
Congress, the great time and money-waster, should quit wasting time playing around with Bryan Pagliano, the former State Dept. employee who set up the email server in Hillary Clinton’s private home (“Hillary Clinton staffer rejects ’proffer,’ wants immunity for testimony on email server,” Web, Sept. 9). They should get serious with him.
Forget about giving him immunity the first time around. Just subpoena him. The law requires that Mr. Pagliano respect and respond to a subpoena and appear before Congress to face questioning. If Mr. Pagliano thinks that the answer to any particular question could possibly be used to incriminate him in a crime, he can invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination then. If Mr. Pagliano refuses to answer and pleads the Fifth to a question the answer to which could not incriminate him, charge him with “contempt of Congress” and put him in jail where he can think things over.
After all of his ’non-immunized’ testimony is taken, if Congress has found out all it needs to find out from him, fine and good. It will be done with him. But if it hasn’t learned all it wanted to learn from him, grant him immunity from prosecution for whatever he provides in future testimony and call him back.
Repeat all of the questions asked during the ’non-immunized’ session. Then Congress will have all it would have obtained from Mr. Pagliano if it had given him immunity in the first place. Plus, if they find he lied before or if he lies to them in the second session, they can nail him for perjury.
BILL SCANLON
Ellicott City
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