WASHINGTON -- Aides to presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton urged a former State Department employee who helped set up her private email server to appear before a House investigative panel, but the staff member has said he will assert his constitutional right not to testify.
Clinton, a candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, has been dogged by criticism about her use of a private email server for government business during her tenure as secretary of state, and she has struggled to explain her decision.
The response of Bryan Pagliano to a committee subpoena was unwelcome news to Clinton aides who had pressed the former staff member to be interviewed by the Republican-led panel investigating the deadly 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.
The aides were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Attorneys for Pagliano sent the committee a letter Monday saying their client would not testify at a hearing planned for next week. The panel subpoenaed Pagliano last month.
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Benghazi panel, said he was not surprised that Pagliano would refuse to testify, given the "wild and unsubstantiated accusations" against Clinton.
"This investigation has turned into a 'derail Hillary Clinton's nomination by any means necessary'" committee, Cummings said.
The special committee was established last year to investigate the White House administration's response to the Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. The investigation has widened in recent months to focus on Clinton's use of a private email account and server.
Clinton has dismissed both contentions as "partisan games." She also has said she regrets using a personal email account to conduct government business.
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton's campaign, said in a statement Thursday that Clinton and her team "have been confident from the beginning that Clinton's use of a personal email was allowed and that she did not send or receive anything marked classified, facts confirmed by the State Department and the inspector general" for the department.
Clinton "has made every effort to answer questions and be as helpful as possible, and has encouraged her aides, current and former, to do the same, including Bryan Pagliano," Merrill said.
Clinton is set to testify before the Benghazi committee next month.
Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, told reporters Thursday that Clinton has encouraged cooperation by anyone called before the committee.
"We hope that everyone cooperates but at the end of the day I think what's important is to hear from Hillary herself," Podesta said. "Let the public hear what the questions are and let them hear what her answers are."
At a closed-door meeting Thursday, members of the House panel were questioning Cheryl Mills, Clinton's former chief of staff.
According to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity, Mills told the committee that none of Clinton's work-related email was intentionally destroyed or hidden.
Mills said in the all-day deposition that Clinton wasn't trying to hide anything when she had her private server wiped clean of email that wasn't work related, the person said.
Cummings called for the committee's GOP majority to release a transcript of Mills' testimony as soon as possible. No other testimony has been made public since the committee began interviews last year.
Jake Sullivan, another former top aide who now works on Clinton's presidential campaign, was to be interviewed today. Both sessions are off limits to the public.
Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the committee chairman, said before the interview began that Mills "is no different from any other witnesses" who also have been interviewed in private.
Gowdy told reporters they were "free to claim whatever inference you want" from the fact that Pagliano was refusing to testify.
Pagliano was a State Department employee from 2009 to 2013 and is now a private contractor working in the department's Bureau of Information Resource Management, according to a department official who asked not to be identified when discussing personnel matters.
Clinton will sit down for an interview today with MSNBC -- the third national television interview of her four-month presidential campaign.
The appearance will be the first in a series of media appearances that her campaign says Clinton will participate in this fall, before her Oct. 22 public testimony to the Benghazi committee.
Clinton aides see the hearing as an opportunity to address questions about her email setup, arguing that it gives the former New York senator a congressional platform to shame her Republican critics for what they view as a little more than a political witch-hunt.
"We know that we have good answers on these questions that people have, and we're going to make sure people hear from her," said Clinton campaign communications director Jen Palmieri.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Lee and Lisa Lerer of The Associated Press and by Billy House of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 09/04/2015