problems began almost immediately with george washington. >> parkway central librarian richard levinson on myths surrounding presidents and their health. he'll talk about how doctors have sometimes contributed to a president's death or saved them from dying without public knowledge. for our complete "american history tv" schedule go to c-span.org. earlier this week, three former aides to secretary of state hillary clinton refused to testify on her staff's preservation of e-mail records. brian pogliano, a former management resource adviser didn't attend the hearing after being issued a subpoena and jason chaffetz said there will be consequences. this is about 2 1/2 hours. >> ready? >> committee on oversight and government reform will come to order. without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess

at any time. it's a very important hearing we're having examining state department and federal records. as we know, hillary clinton as secretary of state for four years, roughly four years, helped create what is reported to be one of the biggest security breaches in the history of the state department, an absolute mess. we have witnesses vital to our understanding the problem, how we got into the mess and how we're potentially going to clean it up. joining us will be mr. justin cooper, a former employee of bill clinton and the clinton foundation. mr. cooper purchased the first server used by secretary clinton and had it installed in the basement of private residence in chappaqua, new york. he also registered the domain name clintone-mail.com.

the same day, the secretary clinton's confirmation hearings began in the senate mr. cooper described his role managing secretary clinton's private server as the, quote, customer service face, end quote. he explained to the fbi he helped secretary clinton set up her mobile devices. when she finished with them, he would break them in half or destroy them with a hammer. interesting mr. cooper was never employed by the state department while he managed the server she used to conduct the business of the government. mr. cooper needed upgrading to the server for better service. he turned to mr. bryan pagliano who worked for secretary clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and was in the process of closing out the campaign's i.t. assets when mr. cooper called to discuss a new server for the secretary. to put that new server together, mr. pagliano used one from her campaign. anything else he needed was

evidently bought off the shelf. in march 2009 they met in the clinton's home in chappaqua, new york, and installed the new server reportedly in the basement. unlike mr. cooper, mr. pagliano went on to become a state department employee. just a few months after installing the server, mr. pagliano was hired at the state department as gs 15 schedule c. public reports suggest mr. pagliano received a state department check and was paid by the clintons, none of which he reported on public disclosure forms as required. a recent office of inspector general report, mr. pagliano's supervisor at the state department, quote, questioned whether he could support a private client during work hours given his capacity as a full-time government employee, end quote. mr. pagliano left the state department in 2013 just as hillary clinton, secretary clinton, left. when responsibility for the servers turned over -- left.

when the responsibility for the servers turned over to our next two witnesses, things started to get a little bit more complicated. mr. bill thornton and paul combetta both worked for platte river networks. platte river was hired by secretary clinton in early 2013 to host the e-mail server after mr. pagliano had been working on it. prn, plat river networks, managed on the managed server to its own server, which was located at a data center in secaucus, new jersey. things with platte river networks get complicated in march 2015 according to fbi report. in early march 2015, "new york times" revealed secretary clinton used a private e-mail account while at the state department. the house select committee on benghazi sends both a preservation request and subpoena following the news. according to the fbi report, that preservation request is forwarded to prn, platte river network by secretary mills, chief of staff and current

attorney. in his first interview with the fbi, evidently, he had no memory of the request. in a subsequent interview, he not only remembered that request but understood it meant not to delete any of secretary clinton's e-mails. then something happened. at conference because between platte river networks, mills, and one of the attorneys. once again, his story changes. in his first fbi interview he said he deleted no e-mails of secretary clinton at the time. later on he stated he not only deleted archives of e-mail on the server but used bleach bit to delete her pst files on the server. at the same time a number of manual deletions were made on the backups of platte river server. we appreciate the witnesses today and hope they can

ul lime -- illuminate the situation and help us understand. as i said before, this is one of the biggest breaches in the history of the state department. we have a duty and obligation to investigate it. now recognize the ranking member mr. cummings for his opening statement. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. today is our third -- third emergency hearing about secretary clinton's e-mails in four business days. third in four days. emergency. i believe this committee is abusing taxpayer dollars and authority of congress in an astonishing onslaught of political attacks to damage secretary clinton's campaign for president of the united states of america. this is the first time in my 20

years of congress i personally witness the oversight power of this committee abused in such a transparently political manner to directly influence a presidential campaign. the point of today's hearing is to investigate baseless republican accusations that secretary clinton or her aides ordered the destruction of e-mails to conceal them from investigators. the most important fact for today's hearing is that the fbi already investigated these accusations and thoroughly debunked them. they interviewed witnesses, examined forensic evidence and concluded that these accusations have no merit. fbi director comey stated, and i quote, we found no evidence that

any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them, end of quote. he went on to say, and i quote, we did not find any evidence of evil intent, or intent to obstruct justice. that's the fbi director, a man who had been a lifelong republican, a man who was applauded by republicans as one of the most honorable public servants that ever existed. so he went on and emphasized in a memo to staff just last week, and i quote, the case itself was not a cliffhanger, end of quote. of course republicans did not like the answers that the fbi

director gave, so they simply manufactured today's hearing out of thin air. this entire hearing is a contrived campaign photo-op. here is a playbook the republicans are using. step one, publicly accuse the witnesses of criminal activity no matter how ludicrous, then refer them to u.s. attorney's office for investigation. step one. step two, the next day invite the same witnesses to an emergency hearing on those criminal accusations and rush to issue a flurry of unilateral subpoenas demanding they testify. no debate.

no vote. step three. express false outrage when these witnesses -- this is a playbook. express false outrage when these witnesses, who you just accused of criminal activity, take advice from their counsel to assert their fifth amendment right to not testify. there you have it. presto, instant photo op. that's what happened to them despite the fact of career law enforcement agents at the fbi just unanimously recommended against bringing any criminal charges in this case. keep in mind director comey said this was an all-star group of fbi agents, an all-star group of

fbi agents said unanimously that these gentlemen should not be charged. then there's bryan pagliano, the i.t. specialist who worked on secretary clinton's e-mail system. mr. pagliano has already been interviewed by the fbi. the fbi provided us the results of his interview. but the republicans disagree with the fbi's conclusions, so here we are. mr. pagliano has already asserted his fifth amendment rights before this congress. he did this when chairman gowdy issued his own unilateral subpoena to force him to appear before the benghazi committee on the same issue. of course i sat as a ranking

member on that select committee. obviously, mr. pagliano was concerned about the criminal accusations republicans were making, so his attorney advised him to assert the fifth amendment. there's no legitimate reason for republicans to force mr. pagliano to appear yet again before congress just to assert his fifth amendment rights one more time. how many times will republicans do this? will they force him to take the fifth in front of the science committee next? how about the homeland security or intelligence committee? should we have them go to those committees, too? this is an absolute abuse of authority. now, chairman gowdy and i disagree without many things, but i give him full credit for one thing that he did. at least when he subpoenaed mr. pagliano, he did it in a private session.

he did not force mr. pagliano to assert the fifth in public just to humiliate him, and i respect mr. gowdy for that. let me say this as plainly as i can. if this committee's goal were just to get mr. pagliano or other witnesses on the record asserting their fifth amendment rights, we could do that easily in a private session just like mr. gowdy did with mr. pagliano a year ago. there's no legitimate reason to force mr. pagliano or the other witnesses who were subpoenaed for this hearing to assert the fifth in open session. there's only an illegitimate reason to get a photo op that

republicans think could harm hillary clinton's presidential campaign. second they, they think mr. pagliano or mr. combetta should testify before us because they received limited use of immunity for their statements to the fbi. but no lawyers worth their salt are going to are going to let their clients testify before a congressional committee whose chairman just sent another referral for criminal prosecution, no matter how frivolous the accusations are. they just aren't going to do it. pursuing these kinds of blatantly political attacks undermines the integrity of our committee, the congressional process and the constitutional rights that are supposed to protect our citizens against unsubstantiated accusations just like these. so with that, mr. chairman, i yield back and thank you.

>> i'll hold the record open for five legislative days for any members who would like to submit a written statement. i'd also ask unanimous consent to allow lamar smith, science space and technology committee to join our committee and would be happy to also entertain a request for uc from the democratic side if they would like to join us as well. without objection, so ordered to allow mr. smith to join us today. we now like to recognize our witnesses. do note the absence of mr. pagliano. let me address that. let the record reflect mr. pagliano is not present at the witness table. the committee invited him in a letter dated september 7th, 2016. mr. pagliano informed the committee through his attorneys he might assert his fifth amendment privilege. i authorized the subpoena for mr. pagliano's testimony.

on september 8th, 2016, the committee transmitted a subpoena to mr. pagliano's attorney and the subpoena required his presence here today. mr. pagliano is uniquely qualified to provide testimony that will help the committee better understand secretary clinton's use of a private e-mail server during her tenure as secretary -- at the state department among other things. the committee invited him to appear with the expectation his testimony will advance the committee's investigation which seeks further information about the setup and management of secretary clinton's account and other technical aspects of the account. i take my responsibility as a committee chairman seriously, especially the decision to issue a subpoena. it's a serious matter. mr. pagliano chose to evade the subpoena dually issued. i will consult with counsel and my colleagues to consider the full range of options available

to address mr. pagliano's failure to appear. it is vital to hear from us because it's our understanding while mr. pagliano worked in the i.t. department at the state department nearly four years, virtually every single e-mail mr. pagliano had has suddenly disappeared. there's something like less than 20 e-mails -- this is a guy who worked at the i.t. department at the state department. #things that make you go hmm. really? all his e-mails suddenly disappeared? mr. pagliano is important because he was receiving a paycheck from the clintons but failed to disclose that on his financial forms. we'd like to give him an opportunity to answer that question. we also believe he entered into an immunity agreement. you'd think somebody would sing like a song bird if you got immunity from the fbi. what are you afraid of? we wanted to hear from him. that's why we issued a subpoena. there are a number of things we

would like to ask him, and he should be here. when you are served a subpoena by the united states congress, that is not optional. that is not an optional activity. he's not here today. >> mr. chairman? >> mr. cummings. >> let's make sure we have a complete picture here. last night the chairman sent another letter to mr. pagliano saying our committee might go into executive session to accept his fifth amendment -- >> no, i did not say that? >> what did you say? >> i want this committee to be open and transparent. we do everything we can possibly do out in the open. that is the american way. that's the way this committee is going to be run. >> chairman yield? >> sure. >> it's my understanding mr. pagliano's lawyers sent a letter saying they felt this was abuse of process and nothing but to embarrass him. he said if he wanted to go into executive session and be given

immunity, he'd be happy to. i just want the committee to have full breadth of what happened here. he said he'd be happy to appear. so is there -- i take it the consultation you're going to do is going to go into whether or not we're going to give immunity, have an executive session, and when might we expect the decisions. >> he made the decision not to be here, and there are consequences for that. again, the integrity of the house of representatives, this is not an optional activity. you don't just get to say, hey, well, i decided not to do that. we'll look at the full range of options. if anybody is under any illusion i'm going to let go of this and let it sail off into the sunset, they are very ill-advised. >> chairman yield? >> yes. >> i'm looking at your letter dated september 12, 2016, to mark j. mcdougal.

you say in this letter, and i quote, the committee requires mr. pagliano's appearance because, among other reasons, the possibility that he will waive or choose not to assert the privilege as to some or all questions, the possibility the committee will agree to hear his testimony in executive session, and the possibility that the committee will immunize his testimony pursuant to 18 usc section 6005. that's what i was inquiring about. that's your letter. >> to clarify. it requires his presence to have those types of discussions. when he doesn't show up, that option is off the table. you have to be here to have that discussion. >> mr. chairman, just a point of parliamentary inquiry. you said it is not an option for the witness who refused to testify. he was duly presented and served with a subpoena from this

committee, is that correct? >> yes. >> and one of the options would be possible contempt of congress among the options that we have available. at what point would that be appropriate to consider the options? in a future hearing or a request to the chair? >> we will consider all options. i would like to continue on with this hearing given the three witnesses that are here. they are here. rather than unduly delay the rest of the hearing dealing with mr. pagliano, we'll complete the hearing and then look at the options. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> just one thing, mr. chairman. are we going to do that after the hearing? what you just said you're going to do? >> we're going to consider the options considering mr. pagliano is not in attendance after he was issued a subpoena. we'll deal with that after the conclusion. >> one of those things we might consider is going into executive

session since mr. pagliano said he would be happy to come in executive session? would that be one? >> i will entertain all of the potential requests, but i'm telling you i have no intention of going into executive session when he thumbs his nose at the congress, wastes this committee's time and u.s. marshals have to make him show. >> i just want to understand as well as i can. did the chairman issue a criminal referral on mr. pagliano? >> when we heard that the fbi had not looked at anything secretary clinton had testified under oath before congress, we did give a referral. >> and that's outstanding? >> we don't know. we don't know. >> well, you issued it. >> we issued it, but --

>> here is my point. here is my point. you issued a criminal referral for an individual, and then you asked him to come in here and testify before congress. >> let me clarify -- >> that would require him to surrender his fifth amendment rights. if you're referring him and putting him under threat of criminal prosecution and then asking him to come in here, that's not fair. the immunity doesn't cover him. because your referral for criminal prosecution came after the fact and beyond the limited purpose for which he was granted immunity, sir. >> there was no criminal referral on mr. pagliano. did we refer the comments and issues that mr. comey as director of fbi brought up? absolutely we did. he said he required us -- >> it puts him at risk -- what we have done as a community and through you on this referral is put him under threat of criminal

prosecution because of the issue that you're investigating. i understand that. i understand that. but it puts him in jeopardy coming before this committee while that criminal referral is in existence. i'm just saying he's an american citizen. i know the constitution gets in the way of the committee. >> the gentleman will suspend. >> gentleman will yield. >> the -- to clarify. the referral was to look at secretary clinton's testimony before congress. that was the referral. mr. pagliano, his attendance is required here. there was interaction with mr. pagliano with another committee, but that's another committee. you have to bring that up with the other committee. i'm concerned with the integrity of this committee. i think we've done the right thing.

his attendance is required here, and he's not here and we'll deal with that after. we have mr. combetta here, mr. thornton here and we do have mr. cooper here. >> mr. chairman. >> gentleman from south carolina. >> could i engage with the chair in a colloquy? >> yes. >> i thought witness pagliano was granted immunity? >> that's what i've read. >> congress can't prosecute anyone. so the one entity who can has granted him immunity. i'm trying to figure out what his criminal liability is. >> if the gentleman will yield? >> i was having a colloquy with the chairman, but you can answer the question. i'll be happy to hear from you. >> the fbi granted him limited immunity. >> the fbi didn't grant him immunity, the department of justice granted him immunity. >> for that limited purpose. >> how do you know it was limited use immunity? >> let me also interject here. >> i have great respect for mr. lynch.

>> his attorney -- his attorney, mr. pagliano's attorney says in his letter that he was given limited immunity for that purpose. >> well, that raises another interesting question i hope the gentleman from massachusetts will help me figure out. when you've reached an agreement with the government, oftentimes it includes cooperation with other entities within that government. i wonder if the department of justice in their proffer or immunity agreement with mr. pagliano made it clear he could cooperate with another branch. we can't prosecute. they can. they made it crystal clear they aren't prosecuting anyone in this fact pattern so where is the criminal liability? >> the gentleman has constitutional rights under fifth amendment. whether they are violated by the fbi or violated here in congress, still violated.

>> as the gentleman knows -- >> not required to be a witness against himself. >> but the fifth amendment doesn't protect you from nonincriminating answers. >> we have a criminal referral. >> not on him. he can say his name, where he worked. every answer doesn't incriminate you. >> the gentleman from massachusetts will suspend. the gentleman from south carolina, it's his time. i was just inquiring of the chair. i thought there was immunity agreement in place between the department of justice and this witness. so if he's been immunized, and you can't prosecute anyone for anything, where is the criminal liability to him coming and answering questions, which further assumes every question you ask is going to expose him to criminal liability. there's no fifth amendment privilege against answering nonincriminating questions. >> will the gentleman yield? >> sure. >> but he can incriminate himself because we've issued a criminal referral here. >> he's got immunity. >> he doesn't have immunity.

he doesn't have immunity. he doesn't have immunity. >> you haven't seen the immunity agreement. >> look, if you want to read it yourself, it's from the gentleman's attorney. >> no, i'm going to need a more reliable source than a criminal defense attorney. i want to read the agreement itself. i want to read the agreement between the department of justice and this witness and whether or not it requires them to cooperate with other entities of government. that is commonplace for them to say you can tell us the truth but not congress makes no sense. that's all i want. >> gentleman will suspend. the committee should also be aware the committee did send a subpoena to mr. pagliano to produce this immunity agreement that was today at 10:00 a.m., and he did not produce that as well. he was under subpoena to not only have his presence here but so everyone on this panel can see this immunity agreement, which he supposedly has in his

possession. those documents were also subpoenaed by the committee, and he did not comply with that as well. it's the intention of the chair here, we're going to move on. there's a lot to address with mr. pagliano. like i said, we're not letting go with this. we need to continue this hearing. we have mr. thornton, mr. cooper mr. combetta here. we do appreciate. all witnesses are to be sworn before they testify. if you will please rise and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? thank you. you may be seated. let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. we have not received any written testimony from today's witnesses.

mr. combetta, are you making an opening statement? >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully refuse to answer and assert my fifth amendment privilege. >> mr. thornton, do you intend to make an opening statement? >> on advice of counsel i respectfully decline to answer and assert my fifth amendment privilege. >> mr. cooper, do you intend to make an opening statement? >> i have no opening statement. >> please, if you all can move the microphone a little tighter, closer, it's hard to hear. mr. combetta, we sent a subpoena to you for your supposed -- we read there was an immunity agreement. mr. combetta, did you produce your immunity agreement this morning as required under the subpoena. >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully decline to answer and assert my fifth amendment

privilege. mr. combetta, a couple of questions. senator johnson last year released a portion of an august 19th, 2015, internal communication between two platte river employees. here is how it read. quote, wondering how we can sneak an e-mail in now after the fact asking them -- them meaning the clinton executive services corporation -- when they told us to cut the backups and have them confirm it for our records, starting to think this whole thing is covering up some shady -- there's an expletive there. i think if we had it in writing they told us to cut the backups we can go public with our statements saying we've had the backups since day one. then we were told the trim to 30 days would make us look a whole lot better. as i understand it, you were one

of two employees on the clinton account. did you send or receive this e-mail? >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully decline to answer and assert my fifth amendment privilege. >> mr. combetta, two days after that, you wrote, quote, we're trying to tighten down every possible security angle on this customer. it occurs to us anyone at prn withes say to the data partner portal, i.e., everyone here, could potentially access this device via remote rb feature. could we set up either two factor authentication or move this to a separate partner account or some other method to allow only who we permit on our end to access this device via the internet, end quote. if i understand the e-mail correctly, every single employee of prn could have accessed

some of the most highly classified national security information that's ever been breached at the state department. can you prove no other individuals accessed this data or even passed it onto someone else? >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully decline to answer and assert my fifth amendment privilege. >> one last one here. you're an i.t. guy paid by clintons. generally i.t. guys don't erase their client's e-mails unless they are told to do so, so who told you to delete the e-mails? >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully decline to answer and assert my fifth amendment privilege. >> mr. cummings, do you have any questions? >> do you all plan to continue to assert -- mr. combetta, mr. thornton, do you plan to continue to assert your fifth amendment rights? is that your plan? is that your plan?

is that your plan? >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully refuse to answer and assert my fifth amendment privilege. >> and you, mr. thornton? >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully decline to answer and assert my fifth amendment -- >> i'm not going to have any other questions since it's clear you're taking the fifth on it. but, and i can understand why you're doing what you're doing. we've had the case here before where answering a question or two then ended up in all kinds of litigation as to whether or not you had waived your fifth amendment privileges, so i have nothing further. i do know that dcs ethics opinion that addresses abuse of witnesses trying to take their fifth amendment privileges. as a lawyer, i'm not going to be a part of that process.

>> mr. combetta, given that you have indicated you do not intend to answer any questions out of respect for your constitutional rights, we will now excuse you from the table. >> mr. thornton, yesterday chairman lamar smith of house science, space and technology committee released an august 13th, 2015, letter from data to prn's attorney which said this. and i quote, we have been following news reports concerning various investigations related to secretary clinton's e-mails including platte river's provision of i.t. related services to her. we have some concerns relative to data security. platte has not enabled encryption at the local device.

given the sensitive high-profile nature of the data which is alleged in press reports to potentially reside on the device, it may be the target of cyberattack from a multitude of highly sophisticated and capable entities or individuals. we believe such an event could place the unencrypted data at risk as well as expose both data and platte river systems to collateral damage. in its current state -- and it goes on -- the device and data stored there on -- and it goes on -- is more vulnerable to cyberattack than data believes is prudent under the circumstances. mr. thornton, given the vulnerability identified, are you aware of any hacks of prn's systems? >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully decline to answer and assert my fifth amendment constitutional privilege. >> i'd like to just ask you one other question that i can't imagine has any implications,

any criminal culpability or anything else. just a simple question, yes or no, and we'll -- if you'll answer this one, we'll cut you loose here. were you interviewed by the fbi? >> on the advice of counsel, i respectfully decline to answer and assert my fifth amendment constitutional privilege. >> you can't answer the question about whether or not you were interviewed by the fbi? >> on the advice of counsel, i respectfully decline. >> mr. cummings. >> again, as a member of the bar for 40 years, i'm not going to participate in this. i just think when we bring witnesses here and berate them when we could do it in executive

session, or whatever, i think it would be unethical for me to do that, so i have nothing. >> given that the witness has indicated he does not intend to answer any questions out of respect for his constitutional rights, we will now excuse mr. thornton from the table. we will recess for two minutes while the clerk is able to reset the table. committee stands in recess.

>> the committee will come to order. as we last left it, there are some serious questions based on the e-mails about -- here you have some of the most vulnerable secrets in all the state department, all the united states. people put their lives in danger for the country, data without authentication and it begs a lot of questions. mr. cooper, you told the fbi, evidently, that you helped set

up hillary clinton's -- secretary clinton's new york and d.c. residence with an imac, correct? >> that is correct. >> so did you set them up, or did you set them up with somebody else? >> those were out of the box solutions that were set up prior to her -- >> sorry, you've got to move it a little closer. >> these were out of the box solutions set up prior to her becoming secretary of state. >> and where did you set them up? >> they were set up in the offices she used in each of her homes. >> did that include the scif. >> at the time they were set up, those rooms were not used as scifs. >> did you ever have to service any of those computers or work on any of those computers? >> over a period of time, i did service and work on those computers. >> you did or didn't work on the computers? >> i did. >> including the one in the scif?

>> i don't any specific time i worked on it once they were in the scifs. >> so how many did you set up in her home? >> there was a computer in each office in each home. i worked on her homes for a period of 15 years. certainly when they were originally set up, they were originally set up for staff to use in their homes. once they became scifs i don't recall using those computers. >> or servicing those? >> no. >> did you have a security clearance at that time? >> no, i did not have security clearance. >> after you left the white house early in -- when did you leave the white house? >> 2001. >> did you ever have security clearance after that? >> no, i did not have security clearance. >> you had full access to the server the entire time you were working for the clintons? >> yes, i had access to the server. >> you had no security clearance?

>> i had no security clearance. >> you told fbi huma abedin recommended you contact bryan pagliano to build the new security system. >> i spoke with mr. pagliano at ms. abedin's request. i spoke as that system had its limitations and we were thinking about expanding it. he had some opportunities using surplus equipment from the clinton campaign that we could use for president clinton's office to -- >> sorry. we've got to still move that microphone. just straighten it out and put it right there. there you go. a little closer. >> what conversations did you have with huma abedin about the setup of the server? >> i don't recall conversations with her about the setting up of the server.

>> what about setting up e-mails? >> at some point i had a conversation with her about setting up an e-mail for the servers. >> what about setting up for huma abedin. >> did you set up an e-mail for huma abedin? >> yes. >> did she use that? >> as far as i know, yes. >> what other staff used the e-mail? >> the others were staffers of clinton. >> other staffers in the office. not on the e-mail domain. >> so who had an e-mail address at clintonemail.com. >> additional person with e-mail address was chelsea clinton. >> did you have one? >> no. >> so you, huma abedin and secretary clinton had e-mail addresses there. >> i did not have an e-mail address. >> sorry.

okay, so hillary clinton, huma abedin and chelsea clinton each had e-mail addresses at that address? >> correct. >> what other computers did you set up in their residence? how many computers did you set up? >> the only computers were the two imacs which you previously mentioned and the initial apple server which came in with support from apple to set up that server in their household. >> did you set up anything in washington, d.c., at a residence there? >> as mentioned, one of the two imacs referred to was in washington, d.c.. >> the other one was in chappaqua, new york? >> correct. >> so there's a total of two computers, one in chappaqua. why did you set up clintonemail.com? >> secretary clinton was transitioning from presidential

campaign and her senate role and had been using primarily a blackberry for e-mail correspondence. there were limitations to her ability to use that blackberry as well as a desire to change her e-mail address because a number of people have received her e-mail address over the course of those activities, so we created, with a discussion, i believe, with huma abedin at the time what domains might be of interest. we obtained a domain and added it to the original server used by president clinton's office for her to use with her blackberry at the time. and we set that up in a way where the messages simply came into that server and bounced right to her blackberry and were not retained on that apple server. >> who paid for these computers? >> all of them were paid personally by the clintons. >> personally? >> personally. >> and who were you being compensated by? >> i was being compensated by the clintons. >> personally or clinton executive services, clinton foundation, what was it?

>> at that time i was employee of both the clinton family personally and clinton foundation. >> okay. all right. my time has expired. now recognize ranking member mr. cummings. >> mr. cooper, the fbi's investigative summary states the apple server you helped install in the home of president and secretary clinton in 2008 was originally purchased for the purpose of hosting e-mail services for president clinton's staff. to the best of your knowledge, is that accurate? >> yes, that's accurate. >> according to the fbi summary, the decision was made to keep that server in the clinton residence. the reason was, and i quote, due to concern over ensuring e-mail reliability and desire to segregate e-mail for president

clinton's various post-presidency endeavors, end of quote. according to the fbi, the decision was made in january 2009 to switch from the apple server to a new server. yes, the fbi investigative summary states that in 2009, quote, according to cooper, in or around january 2009, the decision was made to move to another server because the apple server was antiquated and users were experiencing problems with e-mail delivery on their blackberry devices, end of quote. is that accurate? >> i would say there's not a date certain there was a decision made to switch from one server to the other in my conversations with mr. pagliano i was aware the apple server we were using was not fully meeting

our needs and not expandable to meet other needs. it didn't have a robust solution to support plaqblackberry usage. it's hard to remember what the technology around blackberry was then and how they functioned. there were more progressive ways to use a blackberry. mr. pagliani had the ability to set up a server with a proper blackberry interface with it. and that was something desired by president clinton's team. over a period of time as bryan decommissioned those servers from the campaign, we were able to purchase them from the campaign. he then took time to set them up on his time either in the campaign offices or his home. i'm not sure the location. and then delivered them to chappaqua. i believe in around march of 2009 when i physically helped him move them into the space where they were going to reside. >> so secretary clinton began using that new server for e-mail

around march 2009? is that correct? >> her connection to that server was in march 2009. >> the republicans have a conspiracy theory that secretary clinton used the server in her home for e-mail in order to avoid >> asked directly about that theory. he asked and i quote, was the reason she set up her own private server because she wanted to shield communications from congress and from the public? and this is what he said and i quote, i can't say that. the best information is that she set it out as a manner of convenience. it was an already existing system that her husband had and she decided to have a domain on

that system. do you have any evidence to dispute that? >> no, i believe secretary clinton had personal e-mail on our blackberry and was looking for a new solution to be able to use personal e-mail. >> were you ever told she used a server in her home to avoid the federal act. >> no. >> i was never told that. >> mr. cooper i think it would be helpful to walk through what your role was and was not with with regard to the production of secretary clinton's e-mails to the state department and the fbi. did you co-operate with the fbi investigation to the best of your ability? >> yes, i did. >> did you turnover to the fbi any relevant records that were in your possession?

>> yes i turned over records to the fbi. >> in mid to late 2014, secretary clinton's attorneys attempted to collect all of secretary clinton's work related files from her tenure at the state department and turn them over to the state department. were you involved in that 2014 process? >> i was not. and they were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them from investigators. do you have any reason to dispute that finding? >> i do not have any information to dispute that finding. >> now organize a gentleman from florida. >> so mr. cooper you started again and you gave the clinton domain e-mail address, set that

up, is that correct? that was at the very beginning as she was leaving the campaign coming into office? >> from my recollection there was a president clinton domain set up prior to that point and clinton e-mail domain was set up in january 2009. >> 2009. >> at some point when she left the private capacity and came into the public i have some information that at least two of her old mobile devices were destroyed and you took part in that. is that correct? >> i believe you're referring to the fbi report that mentions them. >> good. >> i can't -- >> when did you take part in destroying some of her old mobile devices? >> yes at some point in time when she was transitioning from one mobile device to the next we would take the information that was on the old device back it

up, transfer it to the new device. >> and you worked with him? >> i would interface with him on this. >> did you ever discuss with him how you could destroy a device? . >> are you aware of what happened to his e-mails? you were the one servicing the server for most of the period while she was secretary of state; is that correct? >> i would categorize it differently. he serviced the server. >> you set it up and he conferred and you conferred with him? >> he set it up. he engineered it. and i was the interface between the users. >> would he have had any e-mails on those servers to your knowledge. >> no. >> he wouldn't? >> and you have no idea what

happened to all of his e-mails. >> you also were made aware on two occasions to secret service, i think january 2011 that someone is trying to hack the southern land; is that correct? >> i use that word to describe what was a series of false log ins. on the server. >> not once but twice. then you close down the system briefly to deal with the situation? >> correct. >> when you were first contacted by the fbi. >> i believe it was august of last summer. >> that was your first interview? >> yeah. >> how many times were you interviewed? >> three times. >> could you give us the dates? >> last summer it was the first and then subsequent.

>> last summer, subsequently in the fall and spring. >> were you ever offered any type of immunity or agreement by the department of justice. >> i was not. how long have you been represented by your current council? >> since the beginning. since i was first contacted by the fbi. >> you explained it was the clintons that paid for your council up to that time and the organization that was set up by the clintons? >> i'm the only person that paid for my council. >> you paid for your own expenses? they are not paid for any. >> direct. >> did you have a joint defense agreement with any other individual involved in the fbi's investigation? >> no such agreement. finally you step back from the

day-to-day activities by the clintons about the time of the transition. is that correct? as she left office. and took over. >> yes and you were also responsible for the transfer. helping with the transfer effect and you walked her aid over the phone for taking the information that they had in e-mails and archiving and that's correct. and setting up the laptop computers so that she can create an off line archive. >> to your knowledge, was everything -- >> do you know finally was there any deletion or attempts to delete any information that had been stored that was going to be transferred and archived? >> i have no knowledge of that. >> thank you. >> i recognize the gentleman from the district of columbia.

>> thank you mr. chairman. the fbi report for the average american put the matter involving mrs. clinton's e-mails to rest for the average person. and yet you can take what's happening here and i want to ask you mr. cooper, one of those colonels, one of the most conspiracy theories to come forward out of that report files on from testimonies that you gave. that report quotes you and i take it you're under oath before the fbi. >> i'm sorry i was not under oath. >> well it says you advised that you sometimes assisted users including clinton when they

obtained a new mobile device by helping them back up the data from the old device before transferring it to the new device and sinking the new device with clinton. with the clinton server. >> that's correct. >> that quote is correct. and then the summary describes two instances and here's where the conspiracy theories acted out both in this house and in the presidential campaign. and you recall two instances that you destroyed all mobile devices with a hammer and mr. trump claimed that who would do that if it didn't have anything to hide and he picked up that rhetoric and says you can show that intent to hide something. i'd like to directly ask him

about the destruction of those blackberries. was your purpose in destroying the old blackberry device ever to hide secretary clinton's e-mails from being saved or disclosed from federal records and laws? >> no. not in anyway to destroy or hide any information at all. i couldn't speak to whether there were records on there that needed to be or should be considered federal records. in fact that would be the case. i was going out of my way to prefsh them and transfer them to the new devices and transitioning various e-mails. >> it's the back up procedure and the procedure of activating a new device and the previous device would have ended up on the new device before we went

and deleted using the blackberry tools to wipe it away. >> so that would mean, would it not or did it mean that you copied the content, photo content of the secretary device and saved it and loaded it on to a new device and the same thing on to the new device. >> that is correct. >> during the fbi's investigation the extra copy of the content of those devices on your own machine. and i turned it over to those that worked with the fbi and the department of justice on

capturing that material for their possession. >> so i take it that that was to make the case that you did not intend to destroy the blackberri blackberries. >> it's from one blackberry to another blackberry. >> yes. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. mr. cooper, do you have an i.t. background or do you consider yourself to be an expert in the iflt t. field. >> no i do not. >> do you think the state

department should have had someone more qualified than you to oversee the server from hackers. >> i was not working for the state department and it was primarily used by president clinton's office. secretary clinton had a personal account on that server. i can't -- i'm not in a position to talk about what the role of the government is in protecting that information. >> on january 29th at 2:57 a.m. you sent an e-mail to secretary clinton's top aid explaining someone was trying to hack the server. how many times did that happen? >> it was her and president clinton's office on it. it was a series of failed log on

attempts which were brought to my attention by an alert we had on the system. one of the ways to stop that was to shutdown for a period of time. and you can then overtime develop more sophisticated ways to help to filter those attempts. >> do you know if pow oring down the server is the way to protect against hacks? >> i can't speak to that. >> do you know what a brute force attack is? >> yes, a brute force attack from my understanding is a series of attempted log ins using a variety of passwords.

>> how many did you observe on the clinton server? >> i can't say with any specificity. they happened with some limited frequency over the period of the last 2.5 years. >> they occurred with with frequency. >> some frequency. >> i yield my time back to the chairman. >> mr. cooper, how many people had access to this server? >> two people had some administrative rights. i can't off the top of my head tell you how many users there were over the lifetime of the server but it was less than 20

people. >> was it encrypted? >> he was a user. >> did it have dual authentication? >> i don't recall dual athe authenticati authentication. >> it does have remote access. you have some 20 odd people that can do it. it's with the clinton foundation and clinton executive services also have access to that? >> i can't say it's intermingled with the clinton foundation. clinton executive services. >> you're being paid by them. people are being paid by clinton foundation that were accessing and using the system, right? >> in part there were individuals that had multiple job responsibilities for multiple entities within the

clinton world and some people did do work for the clinton foundation, yes. >> so did the state department ever contact you or complain or issue any sort of concern? >> no, i do not have any concern. >> mr. chairman i have one more question. >> in order to make the private server much more secure server the state department had to lower it's own security settings temporarily to manage her more insecure security server. do you know about that? the fact that she had this insecure server? >> that's not something i specifically know about.

>> mr. cooper, the fbi conducted a yearlong investigation and said we did not find secretary clinton or her colleagues with classified information and went on to say that i do not see evidence that is sufficient to establish that she corresponded both talked about classified information on e-mail. >> in the yearlong investigation the fbi did have a number of

technical computer experts on the team and. >> he said with respect to potential intrusion there was evidence that her personal e-mail domain since 2009 was successfully hacked and the summary similarly stated fbi investigation had forensic analysis, did not find evidence confirming that clinton's e-mail server systems were compromised by cyber means. do you have any information today mr. cooper that contradicts the fbi's finding? >> do not have any information to contradict that finding. >> okay. >> the fbi summary describes in some detail what you explained

and it states as i quote, when asked about the maintenance and security on the server system he stated there were no security breaches but there were many failed log in accounts and referred to earlier in atlanta questioning. is that statement that i just read that quote from is that consistent with your recollection? >> that is consistent with my recollection. >> did you take any steps to protect the server when there are these failed brute force, so-called, log in attempts? >> overtime he developed a few different solutions and manage them in a variety of ways from blocking the ip addresses automatically as i recall.

>> the fbi summary explains some additional steps that were descri described and including establishing secure socket layer certification for incrypted log in on march 29th and filtering to block access on would be hackers. was that consistent with your recollection? >> that is consistent. >> thank you. >> gentleman yields back. now represent the gentleman from ohio. >> i have questions for the guys that aren't here so i want to just walk you through a few things. if we put the up the slide this would be good and look at the date first. august 2015. a lot of things happened before that day.

wondering how we can sneak an e-mail in now after the fact when they told us to cut the back ups and have them confirm it and it's really covering up a lot of bad stuff. they wanted something in writing because they knew they were going to get thrown under the bus later on. we know they changed the back up structure because look at the fbi report. cheryl mills instructed someone to modify the policy on clinton mail.com e-mail account let's just walk through some history here. from the fbi report july 2014 at the request of cheryl mills, they remotely transfer all

hillary clinton e-mail to their laptops and these laptops are later have stuff deleted. what happened right before that? >> there's going to be a letter coming requesting all of her e-mails. jump forward to december. cheryl mills requests they change the e-mail retention policy on her account. what i just read. what happened right before that? what prompted this change? december 2nd chairman of the benghazi committee says we just found out about this other account. we didn't know at the time it was the only account, this other account that hillary clinton has. he'd like the information in e-mails relating to the benghazi situation from that account and of course right after that they

changed the policy and is its instructed to delete anything for 60 days. >> and in the opening comments. march 2015. march 2nd, new york times reports just this one e-mail account. this private server situation, march 3rd. sends a preservation letter telling them to preserve everything that might be relevant to our investigation march 4th. there's a subpoena. march 9th, flat river network is put on notice about the preservation notice. march 10th she does her press conference and of course the important dates. march 25th and march 31st. those two days there's con presence calls with clinton lawyers. and hillary clinton's lawyers and flat river networks and on the 31st of that month they get rid of everything.

they get rid of everything. >> now we have two guys. three guys. one on the front end. helped mr. cooper set it up and get immunity. and now we have two guys on the tail end, right? >> mr. thorton didn't work for the government. they take the fifth and at least he gets immunity. >> go back to the date again. august 2015, these guys are starting to wonder, wow we don't have anything in writing. we have been dpichb all of these instructions. verbally, phone calls, conference calls. all of these instructions to change the back up and delete things. race things. take hammers to things. we don't have anything in writing. we might in b in trouble. guess what, they are. that's the story and that's why it's appropriate mr. cummings for the chairman to invite him

in today and see if they would finally answer somebody's question. he is just right. he is exactly right. they'll talk to the people that can put him in jail but they won't talk to congress. they'll talk to the justice department. they'll 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. i've never seen anything like this mr. chairman where you get and we talked about yesterday, 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 hearing you're having and the investigation we're doing is entirely appropriate and with that i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back and i'll now recognize the gentleman from texas. >> thank you. thank you for being here and having the courage to testify before us and getting to the truth. i want to just take a big step back. i'm going to ask the geek

questions you may or may not be able to answer. the server the clintons had, this wasn't like just a personal computer that everybody has. i have a server in my house. that's how i get e-mail. they think their personal computer is a server. this is running business class software that delivered and stored e-mail for dozens of people. is that correct? >> yes that's correct and are you familiar with many people who have this type of equipment in their home? it's typically in an office. >> that's correct. >> do you know anybody that has a server in their home besides me. >> some people. >> but it's pretty rare? are you familiar with what e-mail software was running on the server? >> i do not recall specifically. >> you told the chairman that what it was set up to do as an e-mail came and forwarded it to mrs. clinton's blackberry. did it delete it from that server or keep it on that

server? >> my recollection, just to be clear there's two servers we're speaking about. there was an apple server in use from june 2008 until march 2009. that server which was originally set up for president clinton's office staff had some software and i don't recall the name of what that was. one was a male client and one was a cool that was supposed to interface with blackberry but it wasn't blackberry's own product. >> was it secured or forward using like the verizon blackberry gateway. >> i can't speak to the security of what that software was but i believe in the case of secretary clinton because she wasn't going to be accessing the e-mail and fashion and the focus was transiti transitioning her and receiving messages in and not retaining them on that server and having

them automatically forward. >> on a later server, it functioned more like what you were probably used to in your day-to-day activity where there was a mailbox on that server that could be accessed. >> was it opened up where you could get your e-mail for that server through imap or web client? >> i don't specifically recall but i believe depending on the user we were customized. brian would help to customize what ports were opened based on how that user was accessing. >> would you require that it used a se keir client or has come in over the standard ports. >> i don't recall what the protocols were. >> there was a requirement and could have potentially in clear text. >> did you turn over the logs and moet fireworks kagss that you received to the fbi in the

e-mail of brute force attacks. >> i did not turn those over to the fbi. there was an instance where we shared some log with the secret service when we were first experiences failed log in attempts. >> you have to notice when there was a failed log in attempt but if somebody doing it and throw random passwords at it. you would have thought it was a legitimate user getting in. >> you only hit notices of failed log in attempts. you weren't notified every time somebody actually logged in. >> correct. >> somebody could have gotten the end but you just wouldn't have known it. >> was there a firewall and a

piece of hardware. >> it's part of the apple server. >> wrote recall. >> then we talked a little pit about mrs. clinton going through a variety of blackberries. were they all the same version of blackberries or did she migrate up and when it came out did she want the latest and greatest blackberry? >> it's difficult i think for me at least to time warp but blackberry was releasing models quite frequently then and track balls to track wheels. and her older device might have been failing. >> security patches -- >> they were updated.

>> having kept a server in my house for ahiel and now moved over to an online hosting. it's next to impossible to keep one the pace of the security fixes that are coming out. it happens when i dpeek out. >> we'll now recognize the gentleman woman from wyoming. >> i'm glad that we had a geek out because i can't do that. i'm a rancher. i'm not as familiar with these technologies but i do know this, just as an average american, we he do know that the chinese government hires people to hack by day and that the same hackers r hack for hire at night. so this are people who are spending every single day in china, probably russia, other

countries trying to hack into the computers of u.s. government officials. so security is a constant problem in this country. especially for high elected officials or appointed officials. and i do know this, that encryption can be used to help prevent that. that dual authentication processes can be used to help prevent that kind of hacking. so mr. cooper, are you telling me that there was no dual authentication. no encryption. and the secretary of state had no protection of our secrets and we all know that efforts are being made to hack people just like her in government.

>> security functions were on the server. and they evolved over time and there were different things that were available and considered it different structures. i would certain lay agree with you that this is something that we should all be concerned with and i saw this again as this was -- there was a need to, yes, protect the privacy of individuals and their personal lives. using their e-mail. >> we also know that as members of congress and we travel to a foreign country and we have a device and especially russia, they tell you to write our devices in aluminum foil so

there's no transmission and i have seen televised examples of secretary of state clinton using her electronic devices to communicate while she is all over the world and now that we know that these servers and devices were scattered around in her home and there was some sort of management of documents and in colorado. how can people like me ensure the american people that the information that was on those e-mails and that some of which has been at the stroied and was not available to us. is not being sifted through. and even as we speak by chinese hackers and russian hackers. what security does our country

have by virtue of what looks to me like some pretty lackadaisical attitudes toward sensitive data, top secret data. secret data. confidential data. >> i'm not an expert in computer security. i understand some of the concerns that you have expressed from things i read in the newspaper but i had no expertise in this area. second i had no knowledge of the content and could not verify what the content was on this equipment and third i also have no specific knowledge of which countries secretary clinton chose and did not choose her devices. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> before you yield back. >> you get huge browny points for the committee for showing up and having the guts to answer questions. we're very grateful for that. i'm also very grateful for your

candid nature in expressing the idea that you don't have the expertise to even answer those questions as thoroughly as possible. >> the problem i have, i believe it's based on the testimony thus far. here's you mr. cooper, no experience, no dual authentication and who do you think is going to win that one, that's going to scare the living daylights out of us is the cavalier nature is some of the nation's most sensitive and secure information. that's the concern. i'm going to recognize the gentleman. not going to recognize the gentlemen from vermont for five minutes. >> thank you very much. i'll have a few questions and a bit of a statement. mr. chairman, you're a good chairman. doing a great job but i disagree

to you about my focus on hillary clinton. i want to give a little perspective here. legitimate investigation but we had the fbi. mr. comey who has a unimpeachable record of vigilance as a prosecutor. who calls him as he sees them. he went through every single thing. every single e-mail and he came to the conclusion that there was no criminal conduct. there is no evidence of that in fact of the secretary's e-mail had been hacked. it's not even a close call. b even if the e-mail set up the private server the secretaries acknowledged that that was a mistake. there's a legitimate basis to inquire as to what happened. i have a feeling that a little

bit of this has to do with something other than e-mails and it may have to do with something that's looming in november. now one of the issues that i have as i listen to the questions of my colleagues is they're asking the witnesses to try to disprove a negative. my friend from wyoming was asking about the russian or chinese and they probably are. trying to get into every department i have. and department of defense and the joint chiefs of staff and that aprehengs is well founded. there's no way that any of us can disprove or prove that they haven't gotten to the e-mail of the secretary of defense or the secretary of state or the white house or any of the house accounts and the question that it raises the apprehension and

focussing at all with hillary clinton and access that intentionality of the russians and chinese doesn't apply across the board and may have access to any one they want. and talking about having the guts to come in here, thank you mr. cooper, but you can't prove or disprove anymore than anyone else can whether the russians have successfully penetrated anyone's e-mail account let alone secretary clinton's. so the whole issue here is a repetition of an initial assertion that somehow, some way, not only did secretary clinton make a mistake by having a private server but that the

insi insen you wags is that she jeopardized secrets. this committee had m.comey in here and he answered every single question that every single member had and that exhaustive investigation that mr. comey and the fbi did demonstrated that there was no real evidence of either criminal violation and he found no evidence that the e-mails had been penetrated. so that's really the basis upon which a lot of us believed that this committee and this great committee, all of us are proud to serve on it is playing a role that is beyond oversight investigation is kind of advocacy and among american people as to whether something that is valuable information has been taken. do you have any indication mr.

cooper that any secret information has been taken by the russians, the chinese or any other actor. >> have no indication i simply refer to the fbi report. >> all right. and in all of your discussion with your colleagues, is anybody else indicated that they have a shred of evidence. any national security information of the united states was penetrated as a result of the clinton e-mails. >> i don't even think i had any conversation to that effect. devices, ipads, blackberries, is that a big deal. >> it's rather common place. >> or the gentleman that yields back, i appreciate the kind comments and let's remember we got multiple people pleading the fifth afraid of criminal wrong doing and we also have an fbi

director. one of the questions was did you look at what secretary clinton said undernoeth there's other equities that we have in the destruction of documents. he said he didn't look at any of that. so that was also part of his testimony. didn't look at part of it. thus to do our jobs but i do appreciate the gentleman, appreciate him yielding. >> we'll now recognize the gentleman from north carolina. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. cooper. thank you for your answers as we look into this further. and have those private he e-mails served on that server, is that correct. >> two servers both with the pry vary purpose of serving

president clinton's personal office but in servicing mrs. clinton you put her domain name to service he e-mails on those servers. why did you not use another server like one and one or any of the other servers that are out there? why would you not use this? i have a device that has a domain name that i own that i get e-mails at. it's much cheaper for me to just have a server that does that. why would you not have done that. >> first we have this in place. it was certainly an option and considering other options i think that there were some appeals to this and that the data was contained in one mace. we knew where it was contained. it was physically in a secure location. i think that some of the tools that you or i may employ today even with a personalized domain were not available at that time. >> well, in 2009 they were because i was using them and so

i was available them and you were saying the reason to not have another -- you're getting advance from your council. >> so, the other aspect of this, mr. cooper, is you made a conscious decision to put her e-mail address to keep it from being viewed by other people that might have a server like anyone else. >> is that your testimony? >> not sure. >> was it hillary clinton? >> so you're testimony here today is that she said she would prefer to have mrs. clinton's e-mail on a private server vers versus a server managed by

someone else. >> my testimony is that that was communicated to me. >> well, that's eliminating because if that's the case what would be the potential reason where you can see it and someone else couldn't see it. >> it's the use of president clinton's office and i think it provided a convenient and reliable solution for her personal e-mail. >> how many e-mail addresses did she have. and used any address at the time. >> you notice in our e-mails they have numbers behind it and everything else. >> if you count her e-mail address as one and two on the clinton domain that i'm aware of. >> as you were managing this, the other concern i would have is did you have a blackberry

exchange server on your server? you had the push technology on your server. >> correct. >> so when the discussion between plat river and the attorneys and all of that happened in march were you part of that discussion to clean and erase some of those e-mails from servers. >> that was not part of this discussion. >> is it common place when you have a discussion about erasing e-mails to have an attorney on a discussion with a client? i was in business a long time and it never happened with me. >> that's not something that have been able to comment on. >> well, you have an ability to comment on it. you may choose not to. >> well, have you ever been part of a conversation to erase

e-mails where there's been an attorney there to advise you on the advisability of that? have you personally? yes or no. >> i've personally had no experience in that. >> okay. let me finish. you said that you're paying for your attorneys fees here. >> correct. >> have you ever been reimbursed or have you ever had any potential reimbursement for fees for attorneys fees for anyone other than your own personal accounts? >> no. >> do you anticipate any reimbursement. >> no, i yield back. >> we'll now fwot to gentleman from georgia. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> and it's shameful that so many of our witnesses are no longer here. and frankly the appearances they

could care less about our national security and are less concerned about defending our country than they are on being absent and pleading the fifth and as was brought up earlier they're willing to meet with and talk with others, those that had the potential of prosecuting them. who knows what possible deals have been made in some of those discussions? but they refuse to meet with us and begs the question what in the world are they hiding? so i want to thank you mr. cooper for your courage and you're willingness to be with us and provide some answers. it means a dpraet deal to us. >> did they have any more than one device? >> i don't recall specifically her having more than one e-mail device. have come to learn that at some

point she had that she may have used simultaneously with the blackberries. >> there's a possibility that she may have had more than one device at a time. >> it's possible. >> you have referred to yourself as not being an it expert. at any time did you consult cyber security experts when you were setting up her initial server. >> the initial server we consulted with under business solution program to set up that server and of course later we consulted with mr. pagliano. >> and from any department or agency in the government did you consult with at all. >> okay. when you referred earlier to some of the hacks that were taking place with some degree of regular you lairty did you report those hacks or potential hacks to the fbi or secret

service or any other agency. >> as i mentioned earlier when we first experienced the repeated failed log in attempts i reported them to the secret service. >> okay. did any of the -- do you know if anything was done when it was reported. do they come to investigate. >> the secret service reviewed some blogs from the server and made some recommendations about the possibility origins of those log ins and techniques to mitigate that problem. >> and express any concern over this being a private server or use of private e-mails. >> not directly to me. >> so even when they came and

did some investigation and some research, that question kwwas never brought up to you. >> correct. >> how does it work? are you familiar with that? >> i'm not familiar with that. >> well it seems to me mr. chairman and mr. cooper and everyone in this room and everyone in the country for that matter, i mean, we know how absolutely dangerous it is, the potential dangers of information getting in the hands of our adversaries. and you have related that that possibility exists dramatically. in fact, director comey was right when he said that -- i thought he was being very polite when he said this is extremely careless what has taken place and unfortunately mr. cooper you're right in the middle of that we have nations coming after us and here you are

standing up as a defense to try to keep security from being leaked out to professionals and countries and the word of director comey have to be directed to you as well. this is extremely careless what has taken place and your handling frankly of the i. it felt infrastructure even in the midst of not being an expert in this field to me shows disregard for our national security and plf mr. chairman i'm grateful for your continued commitment to pursue and try to get to this and those that refuse to answer our question and plead the fifth to protect their own hide as opposed to protecting our national security again is shameful but i thank you for pursuing this mr. chairman and i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. i now recognize the gentleman from texas. mr. heard. >> thank you for being here. i know that you said many times

you're not an expert in computer security so i won't try to get too detailed. my first question is have you ever worked in the federal government before? >> yes, i worked in the white house from 2000 to 2001. >> were you involved in handling classified information? >> no. >> did mr. pa fwrksgliano work you? >> i'm sorry. can you clarify? >> so you were responsible for setting up the servers; is that correct? >> i oversaw the set up of these servers. >> so who was your boss? >> president clinton was my boss. >> and when you set up the servers, did -- you have reached out to the services of mr. pagliano at some point. was he your consultant? >> yes. >> he was working at state department at the time?

>> at the initial set up he was not working for state department. >> while he was working at the state department was he involved in providing services to your organization? >> yes. >> is that normal? >> i have no basis to judge that. >> so as the person responsible for setting up the servers, did you ever engage a third party by technical vulnerability assessments. >> i left that responsibility to mr. pagliano. >> and he was responsible for the servers from the beginning of the creation of the server? >> he was not. he was responsible for the transition of the apple serve tore what we call the pagliano server. >> so that was backed up to an external hard drive between may 2009 and june 2011. is that correct? >> my understanding. >> and we have a report from the

fbi that states that you would periodically delete these records as the space ran out; is that correct? >> i have no knowledge of how that procedure operated. >> so you weren't responsible for that part? >> correct. >> who was? >> mr. pagliano. >> so when the decision was made to set up an independent server were you involved in that conversation? you were talking about this briefly with my colleague from north carolina. >> yes. >> and why was the decision made to not use a commercial service versus doing something yourself. >> again the initial set up of both servers was in a consideration of a small group of users from president chin on the's office. this was a solution that we felt was an appropriate solution as you can tell by the fact that we transitioned pretty quickly from the apple system to another system and were moving to a more robust piece of equipment.

>> at some point did you say i don't have the technical expertise to do this? >> i was never in a position to be the technical expert on either server. >> so there's a lot of conversation about whether or not the system has been hacked and brute force, you name it, has the fbi to your knowledge investigated whether there was indeed and was there a forensic investigation on the server to see whether there was evidence of an attack? >> i would refer you to the fbi for that. >> were you ever asked questions about this? did y'all do an exhaustive review of whether or not you had records of data leaving the network? were you monitoring whether data was leaving the network? >> i would refer you to the fbi for that. >> were you ever told or did you ever suspect classified information was being e-mailed to and from the secretary.

>> no. >> nobody ever brought that up with you or expressed a concern. >> no. >> interesting. do you think that common practices cyber hygiene must be used in the development of these servers. >> i'm not familiar with what common practices are but i believe some common practices were used. >> who were you using for guidance on what was good digital system hygiene? mr. pagliano. >> and apple in the original device. >> now you said apple a few times. is this like you went into the help desk at the mall? >> we had an agreement with app ael's business service program at the time that the equipment that we were going to use and

set up the system and installed it. >> mr. chairman. >> i hanukkah the gentleman. we're now going to go to the gentleman from alabama for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. and they indicated the whereabouts of clinton devices would become unknown once she transitioned to a new device. what about these other devices? did you make any inquiry about any of the missing devices to make sure that they were properly secured and the data properly recorded? >> i can say with some certainty whenever there was a transfer from one device to the next there was always the goal and the process to transfer all the data from the previous device to the new device. you're specifically asking about what happened to the devices that i know that i personally did not dispose of. i can't speak to that.

i believe and i may have asked those that are in the process of doing that for secretary clinton to also properly dispose of them by rendering them. >> so you were responsible for setting up the servers and these devices? >> he set up the transfer to a new blackberry device, it simply requires someone to tell the server that there's a limited period of time for a user to log in with a one-time password. >> but when you transition from one device to another, what -- did you have any responsibility in handling the device that was no longer being used. what did you do with that? we understand you did something with some device. >> on occasion, i was the person who made the transfer, when i was complete with backing up the information and ensuring it was on the new device, wiping the old device, i rendered them unusable in other matters, yes. >> are you aware that there's a

missing laptop and external storage device? >> i'm aware of that based upon reading the report. >> did you know that the report was that it was lost in the mail? >> that's as much as i know. >> do you know who mailed it? >> i have no details about that. >> if you don't know who mailed it, you don't know who it was sent to. your -- as it was pointed out, aware mr. clinton's use of personal server and her handling of classified material is extremely careless. you were aware that he said that, you read the fbi report? >> yes, i'm aware of the report. >> in your handling of mrs. clinton's servers, did you have any concerns of her use of out dated technology on her cell

phone might be a problem? >> i viewed her use as personal use of a blackberry and of the server that we kept up to date over a period of time. >> you've been around the clintons for a pretty good period of time, haven't you? >> yes. >> and you're aware of the highly sensitive material that mrs. clinton, as secretary of state, was handling that would pass through her communications devices and her servers through her e-mail, you certainly had to be aware that there was sensitive information. >> if i was generally aware that secretary clinton encountered sensitive information, sure, how that was transmitted to her was not something i was specifically aware of. >> but in your disposal of these devices and you said you made

sure they were right. did you receive any instructions or any training about making sure that the date data on those systems were properly recorded? did anyone talk to you about that? >> i had no specific instructions around that. >> would you consider handing of the devices was possibly careless? and i ask you that -- i think you've been a good witness. i appreciate the fact that you st stayed -- that listening to the questions and your lack of knowledge of some of the cyber technology, the cyber protection technology and things like that, my concern is that, it's almost

an atmosphere of indifference. and i really hope that's not the case, because this is not -- although some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle try to make this about her candidacy, it's really about our national security and how we handle things going forward and that's the great concern, i think, really the prevailing concern that this committee has is that we make sure that our -- that we don't put our national security at risk, we don't put our intelligence officers at risk. that's my big concern. and with this missing laptop that apparently no one has made an effort to recover. i thank you mr. chairman, i yield back. >> we'll recognize mr. walker for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to start just by making a couple of statements. a lot of times we're hearing back and forth of who to believe. i find it interesting to believe there's three different times a day our friends to my right have

not been necessarily truthful in some of the accusations they have made. number one, i believe that one of the members talked about this as some kind of relentless pursu pursuit, they're trying to damage the presidential chances or hopes. at the same time, this is some kind of photo op. let me remind everybody, and remember what director said, he said this was an investigation, not caused by congress, but rather the inspector general from the intelligence that we're able to gather. let me put that on the record, make sure this has not been republican driven, this was inspector general, fbi. another thing they've tried to make a case for this is some kind of republican witch hunt, i asked him if he felt this way. he said it was not a witchhunt. then today, we here dremocratic friends say there were no

evidence that e-mails were hacked. you became aware of an attempt to hack hillary clinton's private e-mail server; is that correct? >> i believe you're referring to the e-mail in the report. i said i was using the word hack co -- this was a series of failed log-in attempts. one of the earliest occurrence of this, the way that we put an end was to such down the server for brief periods of time. >> i was here earlier. do you agree that there is no evidence that this server could have been hacked? >> best of my knowledge, defer to the airport report who did the forensic analysis on this? >> you have no take on it? >> i have no knowledge that there was a successful hack on it. >> are you aware on how many times the russians and chinese

try to attack us on a daily basis? >> i'm not aware of this. >> this was on her server private server. >> if it wasn't to what you consider maybe hack status, you e-mailed her twice a day. how often did you normally e-mail mrs. clinton in a given day? >> i believe the e-mail was to ms. aberdeen. this was one of the first or second occurrences that something like this was happening. i was just making her aware, more that the e-mail services might be off line for a few moments. >> sure. in the weeks before how many times did you send an e-mail that was in the same reference. >> i don't recall ever sending a great line with those e-mails. >> this was the first time that you had ever sent something like that. >> i can't say specifically it was the first time. >> pretty rare? >> you're now describing it that the hack was probably not the best description of it. >> correct. >> you were concerned. >> i was making her aware that i

was shutting down the server for a brief period of time. >> were there any times of tacks that you were aware that you felt like the server in a vulnerable position when ms. clinton was in possession of the server, any other times. >> as there was an increase in the failed log-in attempts we made secret service aware and they reviewed the logs and made some recommendations. >> you've got a number, about, roughly? how many times it might have been happened on these -- on these failed e-mail attempts or log in attempts. >> less than a thousand, more than a thousand? >> less than a thousand. >> in closing, here and i'll yield back the rest of my time here, you might have mentioned this earlier in having doing some questioning right outside here, can you remind me, again, how you were compensated, can you go into that to tell me what direction, who compensated you for all of this. >> i was worked with the clintons for 15 years and

compensated variety of ways over a period time or for president clinton helping him make his memoirs. i traveled the world with him at points i supported the foundation, i had varying sorts of income. >> a little grey area there, if i may be so bold. when you say you were compensated in a variety of ways, did that include being paid with cash? >> no. >> this was just like paid personal check from bill clinton, here you go? >> yes i was a full employee. >> what was the title -- how were you getting paid with that? did it say, bill and hillary? >> yes, there were multiple payroll. there was a clinton household payroll. there was a clinton executives. >> but there were personal checks as well? >> they were through employer services company that managed the payroll, yes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> we'll now recognize the

gentleman from oklahoma, mr. russell, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, mr. cooper for you patience and also your answers that you've provided the panel to date. you alerted folks to possible breach attempts and we're concerned, obviously, about the security as we've heard in your testimony today. in january 2013, according to fbi reports, tour user logged in to president clinton's account and browsed e-mail and folders of that person's account. were you aware of that breach? that's a little different than what what was just stated to mr. walker. >> i was not aware of that breach until i read it in the same account. >> did it cause you concern. >> once i read it? >>