I do kind of struggle with the follow-on implications of the 5th Amendment. I get your right to not admit guilt directly, in other words the guilt should be proven. But when government employees for example stand before Congress and invoke the 5th Amendment to not answer certain questions in what is not a court of law (as people on both sides of the political divide have done), should you continue being a government employee after that point? (This is not the thread for such a question I realize.)
I think that a big divide is that a lot of the “government employees” are political appointees. Not that they aren’t also government employees, but I think there’s a difference to be drawn between the civil service and political appointees. I think there’s a lot more political appointees on the stand taking the fifth than civil servants.