Clinton spokesman: 'I don't know what 'wiped' means'

Hillary Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon. (Image: CNN screenshot)

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's press secretary took a page out of his boss' playbook on Thursday and played dumb when asked about her "wiped" server.

CNN’s Brianna Keilar tried for almost 10 minutes to get Brian Fallon to answer questions about the server Clinton turned over to the FBI on Aug. 11.

“I don’t know what ‘wiped’ means,” Fallon said when asked about the server by Keilar, the Blaze reported.

Fallon's response was reminiscent of Clinton's reply to Fox News’ Ed Henry during a Las Vegas, Nevada, campaign stop in late August. When the journalist asked if she had her server wiped before turning it over to the FBI, Clinton responded, "Like with a cloth or something?”

"Honestly, I just wanted to pin you down on some stuff that I haven’t been able to get because it follows certain standards of preservation,” the CNN host told Fallon.

"She's followed every request," said Fallon. "The State Department asked for emails in paper form, she provided them. The Justice Department asked for them in electronic form — PDFs on a thumb drive — she provided them. She also provided the server. I don't know what 'wiped' means. Literally, the emails were deleted off of the server. That's true. But it's quite possible, I don't know that any steps were taken to remove any metadata. So, to the extent that there is a further inquiry into the server, they won't find anything other than what we already represented, which is that all of the work-related emails were turned over."

Fallon's interview comes on the same day it was reported former Clinton staffer Bryan Pagliano will invoke the Fifth Amendment rather than testify before Congress on the issue. The former information technology employee is scheduled to appear before the House Benghazi Committee on Sept. 10.

Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said that the former secretary of state has urged all former aides to be open and forthright with Congress.

“She has made every effort to answer questions and be as helpful as possible, and has encouraged her aides, current and former, to do the same, including Bryan Pagliano,” Merrill said in a statement, the Hill reported.