A former Department of Justice official called the State Department’s claim that it has zero emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal tech aide Bryan Pagliano "suspicious."
"The whole thing stinks to high heavens," Dan Metcalfe, the founding director of the Justice Department’s Office of Information Privacy, told LawNews Tuesday.
The State Department announced in a court filing earlier this week that it could not find any emails sent to or from Pagliano, who worked as an IT official for the agency and was responsible for setting up Clinton’s personal email server.
The Federal Records Act, according to LawNews, "requires government employees (like Pagliano) who are leaving office to maintain certain records (which often includes emails)." Prior to departure, every federal employee must meet with a so-called records manager who ensures they are keeping proper records.
Metcalfe, who worked for decades as the government’s "information disclosure guru," expressed grave skepticism that the State Department was unable to find a single email from Pagliano, who was employed by the agency for four years.
"If it is true that federal records directly documenting his work no longer exist, then that is awfully coincidental, to put it most charitably—especially given the nature of his work and the role he has played in the Clinton e-mail controversy," Metcalfe said. "Indeed, it is more than ironic, given that what appear to be ‘missing’ are e-mails. And it certainly now raises reasonable suspicion…that something was very much amiss here."
Pagliano was granted immunity by the FBI in March and has since risen as a central witness in the federal government’s investigation into Clinton’s use of an unsecured email system while she served as secretary of state.
Given that the former IT staffer has pleaded the Fifth Amendment concerning questions of his government activity, Metcalfe said it is "more than suspicious" that the State Department has determined that Pagliano’s records, typically expected to be maintained, are completely missing.
The FBI announced Friday that it would interview the Democratic frontrunner in the upcoming weeks as the government's year-long probe inches toward a close. In March, the Washington Post reported that roughly 50 FBI agents were assigned to the case.