Jordan: ‘no regular American can get away with’ Clinton’s actions

During a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today , Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) expressed his frustration over Platte River Networks employees Bill Thornton and Paul Combetta invoking their Fifth Amendment privilege instead of answering questions regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email server. The employees did so even though at least one of them had spoken with the FBI and been granted immunity in the matter by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Rep. Jordan highlighted a Platte River Networks email with the sender/recipient information redacted that stated, "Wondering how we can sneak an email in now after the fact asking them when they (Clinton's lawyers) told us to cut the backups and have them confirm it for our records. Starting to think this whole thing really is covering up some shaddy [sic] [expletive]."

During the hearing Rep. Jordan made the following comments:

"August 2015. These guys are starting to wonder, wow we don't have anything in writing. We've been given all these instructions – verbally, phone calls, conference calls – all these instructions to change the backup, delete things, erase things, BleachBit things, take hammers to things, all these instructions. We don't have anything in writing. We might be in trouble. And guess what? They are. That's the story. And, that's why it's appropriate, Mr. Cummings, for the chairman to invite them in here today and see if they would finally answer somebody's questions.

"Mr. Gowdy's just right. He's exactly right. They'll talk to the people who can put them in jail, but they won't talk to Congress. They'll talk to the Justice Department – Mr. Pagliano, Mr. Combetta will talk to the Justice Department, but they won't talk to us. We can't put them in jail. We just want to get answers for the American people, and they won't talk to us. … No regular American can get away with the kind of behavior Secretary Clinton gets away with. Two standards now in the country, and this is what is so wrong and this is why the hearings you're having and the investigation we're doing is entirely appropriate."

TRANSCRIPT of Rep. Jordan's comments: /uploadedfiles/9-13-16_jordan_transcript.pdf

VIDEO of Rep. Jordan's comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgAUkG4pgAk

Additionally, U.S. Department of State IT aide Bryan Pagliano skipped the hearing despite being subpoenaed to appear before Congress.

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