Mission Accomplished, however. They just scored big political points by getting him to take the 5th. This is one of those situations where the legal rights have no bearing on the situation; this is playing out to the electorate, and its going to leave a mark. There is literally nothing I can imagine him saying to Gowdy’s committee that would hurt her campaign worse than pleading the 5th entirely.
Now the right wing and the media can paint anything they want in its place.
Bullshit. This is the guy who did the server install, and was called occasionally if something crashed. He was not the day-day server administrator.
What you are proposing makes as much sense as calling in your auto mechanic to testify if you had been driving your car across state lines while drinking at the wheel. There is absolutely no way he would have any idea.
Stupid move. The optics alone make refusing to testify in this circus more damaging than testifying and giving them the truth which gives them nothing to work with.
Look, the banned troll is back. Enjoy your vacation from being able to join the adult conversation?
Given that these kinds of hearings are invariably just vindictive fishing expeditions, you’d have to be an idiot to testify willingly. One small misstatement, and you find yourself up on perjury charges. In the case of this individual, testifying can only hurt him. There’s no upside - he’s not trying to rescue his own political future.
And that is EXACTLY, word for word, what you could say about invoking the Fifth.
Once it’s done, you’re done. Because there’s an automatic supposition of guilt in the eyes of the electorate. And that’s who matters here. Not legal opponents, the potential voting electorate who might have had questions with HRC to begin with. Not a good move.
It’s not his responsibility or that of his attorney to protect Hillary Clinton. Invoking the 5th is exactly what he should do in this situation.
Precisely. If I were his attorney, I’d tell him to answer no questions at all, beyond identifying himself. Testifying can’t possibly serve his interests in any manner.
This is like having the police “invite” you to come down to the precinct to answer some questions. You’re innocent, right, so why would you not agree to that? I’ll tell you why - it’s because cooperating can’t help you. It can only hurt you. The police are looking for someone on whom to pin the crime, and it’s not your job to help them, especially when there’s a chance they’ll decide to pin it on you.
If the police want to place you under arrest, fine. You invoke your right to remain silent, and wait until you have legal counsel. Otherwise, they can’t “take you downtown” - you politely decline, and close the door.
This is exactly right.
What you’re saying is only true from a legal standpoint. I’m talking about a political standpoint which is something different.
That’s a bit of a contradiction. He obviously was the head IT guy, so he maintained the system. Surely there were system upgrades, software installs, etc., that he would handle. Not sure how that would be relevant to Benghazi at this point though, they should be talking to the FBI about that…but that would not score political points…
Not really, it’s more like asking a mechanic about a mechanical issue that affected the car, like if you claimed the brakes failed and hit someone, and he had just worked on them. But again, I’m not seeing that connection since there has not been an “accident” yet. If evidence of a crime surfaces, or if lots of emails at the time of Benghazi mysteriously disappeared, that would be a reason to call him. But at this point no such evidence has been disclosed, so there is no need to call this guy.
Ah, so the Behghazi(!) fishing expedition continues… have they bothered to come up with any theory that suggests something nefarious or an acual “scandal” yet? Was she supoosed to have set up this email server to cover up her evil plan for Benghazi(!) or something?
I get that the press do love themselves some “in the weeds” stories to cover that are exciting for their twists and turns when pulled completely out of any context, but what’s the acual “scandal” that’s supposeldly driving this?
True. At this point. Remember, it’s Sept 2015, the election is over a year from now. If no criminal wrongdoing is found, her “damage” is maxed out I think. And there has been damage for sure, this was real dumb of her. But that damage is likely maxed out, unless evidence of a crime is found, and to date we have seen none. What she has done at this point is turn a landslide victory into a pretty close race.
I’m addressing your comment that it’s ‘not a good move.’ It’s a very good move on his part. She has nothing to do with his decision to invoke the 5th and he shouldn’t take her into consideration.
As I said before, this is all smoke and mirrors. There is no there, there.
To be fair puppies never try to join the adult conversation. They just walk around the room yapping at people to play with them and peeing on everyone’s shoes.
The congressional committee was launched to investigate the Obama administration’s response to the 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya. That probe has widened to include Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.
And will soon open an investigation into Clinton’s Minecraft account.