John Bentel, the former State Department IT staffer that once denied Hillary Clinton’s assertion that her use of a private server was approved, plead the Fifth over 90 times in a sworn deposition on Monday.
This latest development in Clinton’s shady e-mail scandal has yet to be reported on any of the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks.
On Monday, The Hill’s Katie Bo Williams reported the following:
A former State Department IT staffer on Monday refused to answer questions about Hillary Clinton’s private email server in a sworn deposition, according to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. John Bentel is one of several former aides associated with Clinton’s private email who reportedly received some form of immunity deal during the FBI’s investigation into the server and who have since exercised their Fifth Amendment right in court or before Congress. Now retired, Bentel oversaw technology for the department’s top echelon.
According to an Inspector General audit, while Clinton secretary of State she assured concerned staff members that her use of the server had been approved and that they should not discuss it further. But in interviews with the FBI during its investigation, Bentel denied that any such conversation took place. In his testimony on the server before the House Benghazi Committee, he claimed not to know that Clinton’s email account was housed on a private server until media reports exposed it in 2015.
Williams went on to report that Bentel pled the Fifth in over 90 questions posed to him, including some about whether or not Clinton had offered him financial incentives to keep quiet:
Ordered by a federal judge to answer questions resolving the conflicting accounts, Bentel answered over 90 questions with “On advice from my legal counsel, I decline to answer the question and I invoke my Fifth Amendment rights,” according to Judicial Watch. The questions included queries about whether Clinton was paying his legal fees or had offered him employment or other financial incentives, according to Judicial Watch. The suit, one of several brought by Judicial Watch, concerns records associated with the employment arrangement of longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Once again, Fox News is doing the stories the Big Three networks won’t touch. The October 24 editions of Fox & Friends, America’s Newsroom and On the Record with Brit Hume all discussed Bentel’s deposition.
The following is the brief from the October 24 edition of On the Record:
BRIT HUME: A former State Department IT worker has invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer questions about Hillary Clinton’s private email server. More than 90 times today after a federal judge ordered John Bentel to answer questions, he pleaded the Fifth repeatedly in a sworn deposition. Bentel would not comment on whether the Clintons paid his legal fees or offered him any other money. In June 2015, Bentel told the House Select Committee on Benghazi that he had no knowledge about Clinton’s server.
