House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters the House will vote this week on a resolution holding Bryan Pagliano, the former Hillary Clinton aide who helped set up her private email server, in contempt of Congress.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz tweeted that he filed a resolution Tuesday.
The Oversight Committee approved the GOP-led contempt resolution last week along a straight party line. The floor vote is expected to come Thursday or Friday, according to a senior House GOP leadership aide.
Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, has argued that previous testimony from another one of Clinton’s IT workers, Justin Cooper, made it imperative for Pagliano to testify.
“I explained Mr. Pagliano was uniquely qualified to provide testimony to help the committee better understand Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server. This is indisputable,” Chaffetz said. “I also made clear the committee would consider all options regarding Mr. Pagliano’s failure to appear, including consideration of recommending he be held in contempt.”
Pagliano was first called before the oversight committee last week but did not appear. Pagliano pleaded the Fifth Amendment in a closed-door hearing last year of the House panel investigating the Benghazi attacks.
Pagliano’s lawyers last week accused Chaffetz of launching a witch hunt.
“A subpoena issued by a congressional committee is required by law to serve a valid legislative purpose — and there is none here. Your demand under the present circumstances, that Mr. Pagliano again assert his constitutional rights in front of video cameras six weeks before the presidential election, betrays a naked political agenda and furthers no valid legislative aim,” Pagliano’s lawyers wrote in a letter to the committee.
The Clinton campaign said Thursday it had not told Pagliano whether or not to testify, and blasted the oversight hearings into her private email server.
“He made his own decision, but we certainly have not prevailed upon anyone to cooperate with this sham of an inquiry,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said. “The career officials at the FBI and the Justice Department already thoroughly investigated this matter, and closed the case with no further action, and Jason Chaffetz is abusing his office with this blatantly partisan attempt to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.”
