WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and her family personally paid a State Department staff member to maintain the private email server she used while heading the agency, according to an official from Clinton's presidential campaign.
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The arrangement helped Clinton retain personal control over the system that she used for her public and private duties and that has emerged as an issue for her campaign. But, the campaign official said, it also ensured that taxpayer dollars were not spent on a private server that was shared by Clinton, her husband and their daughter as well as aides to the former president.
That State Department staff member, Bryan Pagliano, told a congressional committee this week that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination instead of testifying about the setup.
Pagliano's employment by the Clintons was confirmed by a campaign official in response to questions from The Washington Post. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. A campaign spokesman declined to provide a statement.
Pagliano had served as the information technology director for Clinton's 2008 Democratic presidential campaign and then worked for her political action committee.
The Clintons paid Pagliano $5,000 for "computer services" prior to his joining the State Department, according to a financial disclosure form he filed in April 2009.
After arriving at the department in May 2009, Pagliano continued to be paid by the Clintons to maintain the server, which was at their home in Chappaqua, N.Y., according to the campaign official and another person familiar with the arrangement. That person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is under investigation.
Pagliano's attorney, Mark MacDougall, declined to comment.
In a wide-ranging interview on Friday, Clinton said her use of that private email system wasn't the "best choice" and acknowledged she didn't "stop and think" about her email setup when she became President Barack Obama's secretary of state in 2009.
Clinton said in an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell that she was immediately confronted by a number of global hot spots after joining the new Obama administration as its top diplomat and didn't think much about her email after arriving at her new job.
"You know, I was not thinking a lot when I got in. There was so much work to be done. We had so many problems around the world," Clinton said. "I didn't really stop and think what kind of email system will there be?"
Clinton did not apologize for her decision when asked directly, "Are you sorry?" Instead, she again said she wishes she had "made a different choice" and that she takes responsibility for the decision to use a private email account and server.
She added it was a choice that should not raise questions about her judgment.
"I am very confident that by the time this campaign has run its course, people will know that what I've been saying is accurate," Clinton said, adding: "They may disagree, as I now disagree, with the choice that I made. But the facts that I have put forth have remained the same."
Republicans have criticized Clinton's unwillingness to apologize for the decision. "What's clear is Hillary Clinton regrets that she got caught and is paying a political price, not the fact her secret email server put our national security at risk," said Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
Clinton in August handed over to the FBI her private server, which she used to send, receive and store emails during her four years as secretary of state. Clinton has said she set up her own system instead of using a State Department account for the convenience of using a single Blackberry device.
In the interview, Clinton said, as she has in the past, that she "should have had two accounts, one for personal and one for work-related."
Thousands of pages of her emails publicly released in recent months have shown that Clinton received messages that were later determined to contain classified information, including some that contained material regarding the production and dissemination of U.S. intelligence.
But Clinton reiterated that she did not "send or receive any material marked classified. We dealt with classified material on a totally different system. I dealt with it in person."
The conversation about emails led into questions that focused on Vice President Joe Biden's rumored candidacy, Clinton's plans to address the Iran nuclear deal and her views of Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
Information for this article was contributed by Ken Thomas and Ted Bridis of The Associated Press and by Rosalind S. Helderman and Carol D. Leonnig of The Washington Post.
A Section on 09/05/2015