This Case Is Still Relevant

On Tuesday The Epoch Times posted an article about the Awan scandal. In case you have forgotten, various members and friends of the Awan family were IT aides to more than 40 Democratic members of key national security and foreign policy committees in the House of Representatives. Their positions gave the aides access to all of the members’ digital communications and documents.

The article reminds us:

With the exception of Imran Awan, all of the Awan network members lost their access to the House IT network in February 2017, as a result of a report by the top House administrative officials that said the aides “are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems and thereby members’ capacity to serve constituents.”

Imran Awan was kept on the House payroll by then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.) until he was arrested by federal agents while trying to leave the United States.

Awan was subsequently charged with bank fraud in connection with a loan from the Congressional Federal Credit Union.

The article reports the current activities on the case:

An apparently frustrated federal judge ordered attorneys for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to appear Jan. 15 for a “snap” hearing to explain why the government isn’t producing documents sought by Judicial Watch concerning former Democratic information technology aide Imran Awan.

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta’s unusual order followed a sealed submission by DOJ attorneys Jan. 10 in the case prompted by the nonprofit government watchdog’s November 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

Such hastily convened hearings are extremely unusual in a federal judicial system so jammed that months can pass before cases are litigated in courtrooms.

“In a hearing last month, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta expressed frustration and ordered the Justice Department to explain its failure to produce records by January 10 and to provide Judicial Watch some details about the delay,” Judicial Watch said in a statement Jan. 14 about the snap hearing.

“Instead, the Justice Department made its filing under seal and has yet to provide Judicial Watch with any details about its failure to produce records as promised to the court,” Judicial Watch said.

Federal attorneys previously said in December 2019 that they were unable to provide the documents sought in the Judicial Watch FOIA requests because they include materials from a “related sealed criminal matter.”

Thank God for Judicial Watch.

The article concludes:

The Awan scandal was first exposed by Daily Caller investigative journalist Luke Rosiak, who subsequently published a book on his findings, titled “Obstruction of Justice: How the Deep State Risked National Security to Protect the Democrats.”

None of the Awan network members were reportedly required to undergo security background checks prior to being employed on congressional staffs.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in the nonprofit’s statement that “the DOJ’s handling of the Awan brothers case has long been an issue of concern and now we are expected to believe some secret investigation prevents the public from knowing the full truth about this scandal. We are skeptical.”

Just another example of inexplicable actions by the Justice Department.

In Areas Involving Security, The Government Needs To Function More Like A Business

Yesterday Fox News posted an article with the title, “Here’s why Hillary Clinton losing her security clearance matters for the rest of us.”

The article explains:

Hillary Clinton no longer has a security clearance. A letter released from the Department of State to Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, says she lost her clearance on August 30 at her request. The State Department also withdrew security clearances from five people Clinton had previously requested clearances for, as she had designated them “researchers.” One was Cheryl Mills, who was once the deputy White House counsel for President Bill Clinton who defended him during his 1999 impeachment trial. The names of the others were redacted.

The mainstream media is treating the loss of these clearances as a move by Clinton to avoid a political snub by the Trump administration.

The article points out that Hillary Clinton should have lost her clearance when it was discovered that she had classified information on her private servers. Unfortunately, Hillary’s servers were not the only problem.

The article continues:

For instance, the group of House IT aides who made up what amounted to a spy ring didn’t even have to undergo background checks to get their insider positions—jobs that allowed them to see and copy all of the emails and more from the members of Congress they worked for.

Evidence shows that Imran Awan, the head of the group who was an IT aide working for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, was spying on congressmen and even congressional staffers. A current IT aide who wants his name kept out of print told me Awan even used his own email address as the Apple IDs when setting up staffer’s phones.

“The only reason I can think of for why Imran would do that is this would have given him the ability to see everything these staffers were doing,” said the House IT aide, a contracted employee who has more than a decade of experience working for congressmen.

This IT spying scandal, however, was covered up – as it only had to do with Democrats in Congress, the mainstream media apparently had no interest in pursuing the story.

But this lax security is not simply a political story. It puts every one of us in jeopardy. A congressman whose private emails or other data are in the hands of someone who can blackmail or otherwise influence them is a risk. For all of us. And without public pressure, it’s next to impossible to know whether Congress has tightened security to prevent this kind of spying from taking place.

There is a more recent incident:

Only weeks ago, a volunteer on the staff of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Jackson A. Cosko, was arrested after Capitol Police became aware the Wikipedia pages of three U.S. Senators had been edited to include restricted personal information without their knowledge or permission.

“On the night of Oct. 2, 2018, according to the affidavit,” says a Department of Justice press release, “a witness saw Cosko at a computer in the office of a U.S. Senator who had once employed him. The witness confronted Cosko, who left the office. An investigation led to Cosko’s arrest by the U.S. Capitol Police.”

If Cosko hadn’t posted the information, as he is alleged to have done, for political purposes (called “doxxing”) but had instead used it privately or even gave it or sold it to a news agency or a foreign government, he might never have been arrested. Or he might have gotten off just as Imran Awan and his associates did.

The article reminds us that private companies do a much better job of internet security:

What other employer allows former employees to access their networks? Companies commonly terminate employees email accounts and access before they even tell them they’ve been let go.

The government needs to learn the lesson that private companies have already learned.

When Justice Takes A Vacation

No, this is not an article about either Paul Manafort or Michael Cohen. This is an article about former Democratic IT aide Imran Awan.

Yesterday The Daily Caller reported:

A federal judge declined to give jail time to former Democratic IT aide Imran Awan Tuesday, saying he has “suffered enough” at the hands of politicians “at the highest levels of government.” In addition, the Department of Justice said it did not find any evidence that supported criminal charges.

…Judge Tanya Chutkin gave Imran three months of supervised release. Imran’s attorney had hoped to avoid the supervision, indicating Imran wanted to go back to Pakistan: “By ending this today, you will allow Hina to build her family wherever she chooses and allow Imran to visit his father’s grave and secure his legacy,” the attorney said.

The lawyer, former Hillary Clinton aide Chris Gowen, said Imran was motivated by love for his father, who was dying in Virginia when Imran flew to Pakistan. Imran, he said, was in a “panic” to get money to urgently build a charity hospital, described in court as a “women’s shelter.” He described the urgent moves as “securing his father’s legacy.”

Well, I guess everyone is entitled to their version of the story.

The article continues:

The story is at odds with a 2009 Pakistani newspaper article, police reports and lawsuits in Pakistan, as well as interviews. Those allege Imran tried to cut others out of a fraud-plagued real estate deal and secure a massive inheritance in the form of a major real estate complex, known as a “colony.”

A dozen farmers accused Imran and his father of stealing their land and subdividing it to build the development. The 2009 article said that Imran used political “muscle” stemming from his job in Congress to attempt to frame his alleged victims. Later, Faisalabad Agricultural University faculty apparently paid for some of those plots, but said that they, too, were ripped off. Dr. Zafar Iqbal, a university professor and president of the faculty association, told TheDCNF that Imran and his father refused to turn over the deeds and that in January 2017, Imran cautioned them that he “has got powerful political connections.”

In addition to two separate groups of victims, the Awans had two partners in this land deal — Rashid Minhas and Shabbir Ahmed — both of whom were allegedly cut out of the partnership. Minhas said that when he went out of town, they seized his share of the proceeds. Ahmed’s widow, Bushra Bibi, said in the 2009 article that, immediately after a car crash killed both Ahmed and the Awans’ mother, Imran threatened her with “dire consequences” to force her to give up her share, and framed her brother-in-law. A support letter submitted by a former aide to Rep. Robert Wexler seemed to contradict the widow’s own statements, claiming “Imran would send money every month to the widow and children of the driver to help take care of them.”

As if that were not enough, let’s look at some of the past antics of Mr. Awan.

In July, The Daily Caller reported the following:

A secret memo marked “URGENT” detailed how the House Democratic Caucus’s server went “missing” soon after it became evidence in a cybersecurity probe. The secret memo also said more than “40 House offices may have been victims of IT security violations.”

In the memo, Congress’s top law enforcement official, Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, along with Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko, wrote, “We have concluded that the employees [Democratic systems administrator Imran Awan and his family] are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems and thereby members’ capacity to serve constituents.”

The July article in The Daily Caller might shed some light on what just happened:

Eighteen months after the evidence was recounted in the urgent memo, prosecution appears to have stalled for reasons not publicly explained. Imran is in court July 3 for a possible plea deal in the bank fraud case. Gohmert said the FBI has refused to accept evidence demonstrating alleged House misconduct, and some witnesses with first-hand knowledge say the bureau has not interviewed them.

Let’s bring a little common sense into this. Mr. Awan had access to a large number of computers of Democrat House members. In some cases he had their passwords. He was aware of everything that went on in their computers and quite likely made copies of much of the information. Might there be some information people high up in our government are keeping from the American public? Is this another example of injustice in the Washington Swamp?

Nothing To See Here–Keep Moving

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about the House Democratic Caucus’s server. It seems that the server went missing soon after it became evidence in a cybersecurity probe. Wow. What a coincidence. A newly obtained secret memo also said more than “40 House offices may have been victims of IT security violations.”

The article reports:

In the memo, Congress’s top law enforcement official, Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, along with Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko, wrote, “We have concluded that the employees [Democratic systems administrator Imran Awan and his family] are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems and thereby members’ capacity to serve constituents.”

The memo, addressed to the Committee on House Administration (CHA) and dated Feb. 3, 2017, was recently reviewed and transcribed by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The letter bolsters TheDCNF’s previous reporting about the missing server and evidence of fraud on Capitol Hill.

It details how the caucus server, run by then-caucus Chairman Rep. Xavier Becerra, was secretly copied by authorities after the House Inspector General (IG) identified suspicious activity on it, but the Awans’ physical access was not blocked.

…Rep. Louie Gohmert — a Texas Republican on the House Committee on the Judiciary who has done oversight work on the case — said the missing server contained copies of Congress members’ emails.

“They put 40 members of Congress’s data on one server … That server, with that serial number, has disappeared,” he said.

The article concludes:

A Democratic IT aide who alleged that Imran solicited a bribe from him told TheDCNF he believes members of Congress are playing dumb and covering the matter up. Wendy Anderson, a former chief of staff to New York Rep. Yvette Clarke, told House investigators that she suspected that her predecessor, Shelley Davis, was working with Abid on a theft scheme, but Clarke refused to fire Abid until outside investigators got involved, TheDCNF reported.

Eighteen months after the evidence was recounted in the urgent memo, prosecution appears to have stalled for reasons not publicly explained. Imran is in court July 3 for a possible plea deal in the bank fraud case. Gohmert said the FBI has refused to accept evidence demonstrating alleged House misconduct, and some witnesses with first-hand knowledge say the bureau has not interviewed them.a

I will admit that over the years of writing this blog I have become somewhat cynical–with that in mind, I am convinced that there is someone or some people walking around Washington that have a lot of pictures showing many of our Congressmen that the Congressmen do not want revealed. I suspect those pictures and information will eventually come out. My suspicion is based on a public, but unique, internet source that I will not name. It is possible that the July 3 court date could take an interesting turn. Stay tuned. This story is totally underreported by the mainstream media, but The Daily Caller has followed it from the beginning.

The Quiet Scandal

The most underreported scandal in Washington today is the information technology scandal involving the Democrat Party. The American Thinker posted an article today about the continuing investigation and legal action regarding that scandal.

The scandal involves the strange circumstances involved in the hiring of Imran Awan to handle information technology for 44 House Democrats. Awan was originally hired by Debbie Wasserman Schultz. During his hiring process, background checks were waived for Awan and the family members he later brought on as his staff. There is also evidence that he accessed and transferred data that he was not supposed to have access to.

The American Thinker reminds us:

Schultz was forced to step down after hacked emails revealed that she and the DNC had their finger on the scales and actively worked to defeat Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries in favor of Hillary Clinton.

…Like Al Capone and tax evasion, Imran Awan was charged with bank fraud regarding the millions he was paid and handled with his family. But the court case against him has mysteriously been delayed a seventh time. Is a plea deal in the works against Wasserman Schultz or is this just another case of the criminality can being kicked down the road? At issue may be that laptop with initials “REPDWS” on it:

…Many of the delays appear to be related to a laptop that Awan left in a decommissioned phone booth in a House building in April last year. The laptop, which had the username “RepDWS,” was accompanied by several copies of ID cards belonging to Awan and a letter he wrote to prosecutors.

Awan had been employed by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) — whose initials (RepDWS) were on the laptop — since 2005…

After the laptop was found by Capitol Police, Wasserman Schultz attempted for months to have the laptop returned to her, including hiring an outside lawyer to prevent prosecutors from looking at it.

During a May 18 hearing, Wasserman Schultz told the Capitol Police chief there would be “consequences” if the laptop was not returned to her.

According to a recent article in The Daily Caller, Mr. Awan’s lawyer, Chris Gowen, is associated with the Clinton family and has done work for the Clinton Foundation. Mr. Gowen has accused the investigators in the case of being anti-Muslim. He really has no other defense.

The article at The American Thinker concludes:

This is just one of many shoes waiting to drop from the Democrat’s centipede of corruption. Crimes were committed here, possibly including Wasserman Schultz and leading Democrats. Yet a cover-up could be in the works. Let’s not take our eves off this corner of the swamp.

 

 

 

Ignoring The Obvious

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about some of the irregularities surrounding the hiring and work of the Pakistani Information Technology aids who worked for forty-four House Democrats.

The article reports:

Every one of the 44 House Democrats who hired Pakistan-born IT aides who later allegedly made “unauthorized access” to congressional data appears to have chosen to exempt them from background checks, according to congressional documents.

All of them appear to have waived background checks on Imran Awan and his family members, even though the family of server administrators could collectively read all the emails and files of 1 in 5 House Democrats, and despite background checks being recommended for such positions, according to an inspector general’s report. The House security policy requires offices to fill out a form attesting that they’ve initiated background checks, but it also includes a loophole allowing them to simply say that another member vouched for them.

This is amazing to me–these IT aides were not even American-born, yet members of Congress chose not to investigate them for security clearances.

The article explains why background checks would have avoided what happened later:

Among the red flags in Abid’s background were a $1.1 million bankruptcy; six lawsuits against him or a company he owned; and at least three misdemeanor convictions including for DUI and driving on a suspended license, according to Virginia court records. Public court records show that Imran and Abid operated a car dealership referred to as CIA that took $100,000 from an Iraqi government official who is a fugitive from U.S. authorities. Numerous members of the family were tied to cryptic LLCs such as New Dawn 2001, operated out of Imran’s residence, Virginia corporation records show. Imran was the subject of repeated calls to police by multiple women and had multiple misdemeanor convictions for driving offenses, according to court records.

If a screening had caught those, what officials say happened next might have been averted. The House inspector general reported on Sept. 20, 2016, that shortly before the election members of the group were logging into servers of members they didn’t work for, logging in using congressmen’s personal usernames, uploading data off the House network, and behaving in ways that suggested “nefarious purposes” and that “steps are being taken to conceal their activity.”

One of the ironies mentioned in the article:

Among the 44 employers, the primary advocate for the suspects has been Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who introduced a bill Monday that would require background checks on Americans purchasing ammunition. “Without bullets a gun is just a hunk of useless metal,” she said, calling ammunition the “loophole” in gun control policy.

Okay. Background checks for American citizens purchasing ammunition, but no background checks for foreigners having access to sensitive Congressional information. Makes perfect sense!

The article includes information on some of the strange happenings during the investigation of this matter and lists sources for further details of the story. I strongly suggest that you follow the link above and read the entire article. There was a serious security breach here, and somehow the mainstream media has chosen to ignore it.

Part Of The Swamp Currently Being Ignored

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted a story about Hina Alvi, wife of Imran Awan. Imran Awan and Hina Alvi were information technology staffers who worked for Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and other Democrat congressmen.

In case you have forgotten:

  1. Imran Awan was arrested on charges of bank fraud, but that is only a small part of the story.
  2. Mr. Awan and a number of members of his family were employed by multiple Congressmen. When Mr. Awan reached the salary cap for his job, he would hire another family member. This continued, evidently with little regard to the computer skills of the hired family member.
  3. Mr. Awan at one point set up an alias account that allowed him to access Congressional servers after he was denied access. At one point after he was denied access, a significant data download occurred under his alias account. Mr. Awan claimed that the data download was his elementary school child’s homework, but the download involved thousands of pages. Most elementary school homework does not involve thousands of pages. It was also noted that the size of the data breach was such that it could not have been done over the internet—it had to be done using a thumb drive or similar piece of equipment.
  4. It is quite possible that the leakage of information regarding the Democratic National Committee came from Mr. Awan. At the time Mr. Awan was employed by Representative Wasserman-Schultz, she was chairman of Democratic National Committee.

Hina Alvi was stopped at the airport on her way to Pakistan with a substantial amount of money. The FBI let her go.

The article reports:

For nearly a year since, the case has lingered despite the House Office of Inspector General (OIG) determining that the family of Pakistanis made “unauthorized access” to Congress’s data shortly before the election.

Following revelations about the FBI’s actions in the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email server and Department of Justice officials’ handling of the Trump dossier, attention has turned to the agencies’ apparently lax attitude toward the congressional cyber breach case as perhaps the most jarring failure to enforce laws in cases that overlap politics.

The OIG alleged Imran Awan and his family members logged into servers of congressmen for whom they did not work, logged in using members’ personal usernames, covered their tracks, and continued to access data after they’d been fired.

Though the findings place the case squarely into the category of political cyber-crimes that have otherwise been high-profile priorities, the lead FBI agent assigned to the Awan case was a first-year agent, and not from one of the FBI’s big-guns divisions. The charges brought by prosecutors are so minor that Awan’s own lawyer speculated they could be a “placeholder” for future charges.

Server logs of government computers backed up the OIG’s findings. Yet six months after the initial charges, no additional counts have been brought, raising the question of whether the DOJ is seriously investigating the potential national security breach.

The article concludes:

Hosko (Ron Hosko, the FBI’s former assistant director) said six months in, DOJ has all the tools it needs and cannot blame the House, and inaction can only indicate a lack of desire to pursue the case.

“I would hope the Capitol Police are being forthcoming with the U.S. attorney, not just telling them a part of what’s gone on here,” Hosko said, alluding to the House’s characterization of the incident as a “theft” case. “But with these circumstances, [DOJ] can’t put their head in the sand. You can’t just say, ‘Well, someone on the Hill said it’s Speech and Debate.’ There’s certainly a way around it. This is [ Attorney General Jeff] Sessions, and there’s a new mindset in DOJ.”

(Michael Marando is the prosecutor. Since the case began, President Donald Trump appointed a new U.S. attorney, Jessie Liu.)

“I don’t see it as [members] having the opportunity to press charges — the government is the victim,” Hosko said.

If prosecutors don’t act, Hosko said, higher-level officials could consider moving the case. “It could be the Eastern District of Virginia has jurisdiction as well,” he said.

Their next court date is March 8.

There are some familiar names in this case:

Ron Hosko, the FBI’s former assistant director, said the agent on the case is “getting marginalized on the thing, he doesn’t have the bigger picture.” He said the facts in the case plainly call for the resources of both the FBI’s counterintelligence division and the public corruption unit. Peter Strzok, who sought to close down the investigation into Clinton’s emails before the intelligence community IG found classified materials, and who repeatedly voiced his support for Democrats, was deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.

It is becoming very obvious that the corruption at the top of the FBI has been there for a while and has been working against the interests of the American people. It is long past time to clean house.

Notice that we haven’t heard anything about this scandal from the mainstream media for a while.

The Biggest Scandal The Media Is Ignoring

The Daily Caller has been following the Democrat House IT scandal for quite some time. Other media is totally ignoring it. On August 17, Imran Awan and his wife Hina Alvi, were indicted. Both were information technology staffers who worked for Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and other Democrat congressmen. Judicial Watch has also been following the case closely and seeking information.

Yesterday there was a discussion of the scandal among Congressional House Members where Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch appeared as a witness. I have posted the video below. It is long, but worth watching. It is currently available on YouTube.

 

There are a few points noted in the video that are significant.

  1. Imran Awan was arrested on charges of bank fraud, but that is only a small part of the story.
  2. Mr. Awan and a number of members of his family were employed by multiple Congressmen. When Mr. Awan reached the salary cap for his job, he would hire another family member. This continued, evidently with little regard to the computer skills of the hired family member.
  3. Mr. Awan at one point set up an alias account that allowed him to access Congressional servers after he was denied access. At one point after he was denied access, a significant data download occurred under his alias account. Mr. Awan claimed that the data download was his elementary school child’s homework, but the download involved thousands of pages. Most elementary school homework does not involve thousands of pages. It was also noted that the size of the data breach was such that it could not have been done over the internet—it had to be done using a thumb drive or similar piece of equipment.
  4. It is quite possible that the leakage of information regarding the Democratic National Committee came from Mr. Awan. At the time Mr. Awan was employed by Representative Wasserman-Schultz, she was chairman of Democratic National Committee.

The Daily Caller reports the following:

You would think that House Republican leaders would give the Awan mess a much bigger stage. This GOP disinterest is the biggest mystery of all. The media and Democrats in Congress created a frenzy over vague accusations that Russia interfered with last year’s presidential election. They were always short on specifics, but they did have one, the publication of Wasserman-Schultz’ emails by WikiLeaks.

Then came along the reports that the Awans had access to all of the electronic data for a score of Democrats, including members of the House Intelligence and Homeland Security Committees. Imran Awan is even alleged to have the password to Wasserman-Schultz’ iPad. Maybe the Wasserman-Schultz emails didn’t come from the Russians as Wikileaks has always maintained, or if they did, perhaps they were first stolen by someone else.

…There is no indication that the Ethics Committee, chaired by Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN), is doing anything about the Awans, even when story after story appears about their outside businesses and scams, the income from which was not reported on their disclosure forms. These reporting violations are not the Awans’ most serious transgressions, but they provide Republicans with a thread on which to start pulling and an opportunity to raise the profile of the entire affair.

They do not have to defer to investigations by the FBI, the Capitol Police or anyone else. If they were serious about the task, they could proceed on every possible front, much like the Democrats have done on the Russia allegations.

I understand that media bias may be preventing this story from being told, but shouldn’t the media have enough interest in their own self-preservation to realize that this may be a serious national security issue. The Republicans also need to understand that this is a serious issue that they also need to address. Why was oversight on the information technology people in the House of Representatives so poor that Mr. Awan was allowed to add family members at will when he reached his salary cap? It may be time to vote everyone even remotely involved in this scandal and everyone who ignored the growing scandal out of office. This is the swamp.

The Major Scandal The Mainstream Media Is Ignoring

The Congressional Democrat Information Technology scandal has not received a lot of press. The Daily Caller has been investigating it from the beginning. Their latest article was posted yesterday. Some of the excuses given for the misconduct of Imran Awan and his associates make ‘the dog ate my homework’ believable.

The article reports:

Democratic congressional aides made unauthorized access to a House server 5,400 times and funneled “massive” amounts of data off of it. But there’s nothing to see here, Democrats told The Washington Post: They were just storing and then re-downloading homework assignments for Imran Awan’s elementary-school aged kids and family pictures.

A congressional source with direct knowledge of the incident contradicted the Post’s account, saying that now-indicted IT aide Imran Awan and his associates “were moving terabytes off-site so they could quote ‘work on the files’” and that they desperately tried to hide what was on the server when caught, providing police with what law enforcement immediately recognized as falsified evidence and an indication of criminal intent.

…The Post did not note the “massive” outgoing data and unauthorized access until the 40th and 42nd paragraphs of its story, after it had quoted multiple defense attorneys and ventured into a lengthy and seemingly irrelevant but humanizing backstory on Awan’s childhood.

Its print headline was “Evidence Far Exceeds Intrigue” in the probe, yet it quoted only a congressional staffer who, TheDCNF’s congressional source said, would not have been able to make assurances that there was nothing to the criminal investigation, because Congress has been fire walled from the criminal probe since it was turned over.

The Post also did not specify that data was also being backed up online via unofficial Dropbox accounts. Wasserman Schultz has acknowledged that the accounts were used for congressional data, and that she has used the service in violation of House rules “for years.”

The article concludes:

Awan began selling off many of the multiple houses that his family owns around the time he learned he was subject of the cybersecurity probe, and wired money to Pakistan, resulting in Awan and his wife being indicted for bank fraud.

The Post confirmed that Democratic IT aides had no experience, such as Rao Abbas, who worked at McDonald’s. But it did not mention that an Iraqi politician tied to Hezbollah sent $100,000 to a company the family set up while working for Congress, and that Awan had a secret account unknown to authorities, 123@mail.house.gov, that was tied to the name of an intelligence specialist working for Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana. The intelligence specialist denies knowing anything about the account.

This obviously warrants serious investigation. What is Congress doing about it?

The Media Is Ignoring This Story

There is a major news story currently being ignored by most of the media. On Tuesday, The Daily Caller News Foundation posted the following:

A secret server is behind law enforcement’s decision to ban a former IT aide to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the House network.

Now-indicted former congressional IT aide Imran Awan allegedly routed data from numerous House Democrats to a secret server. Police grew suspicious and requested a copy of the server early this year, but they were provided with an elaborate falsified image designed to hide the massive violations. The falsified image is what ultimately triggered their ban from the House network Feb. 2, according to a senior House official with direct knowledge of the investigation.

The secret server was connected to the House Democratic Caucus, an organization chaired by then-Rep. Xavier Becerra. Police informed Becerra that the server was the subject of an investigation and requested a copy of it. Authorities considered the false image they received to be interference in a criminal investigation, the senior official said.

Data was also backed up to Dropbox in huge quantities, the official said. Congressional offices are prohibited from using Dropbox, so an unofficial account was used, meaning Awan could have still had access to the data even though he was banned from the congressional network.

Awan had access to all emails and office computer files of 45 members of Congress who are listed below. Fear among members that Awan could release embarrassing information if they cooperated with prosecutors could explain why the Democrats have refused to acknowledge the cybersecurity breach publicly or criticize the suspects.

House Democrats employed Awan and four family members for years as IT aides. After learning of the House probe, Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, frantically transferred money to accounts in their native Pakistan.

Awan and Alvi were indicted in August on fraud charges related to the transfers, but they have not yet been charged with criminal cybersecurity violations partly because some of the 45 Democrats have been passive about helping build the case, the House official said.

The underline is mine. One wonders what kind of information Awan had on some of our Congressmen that they are so willing to protect him.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Last Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported that Imran Awan still has a secret email account on the House of Representatives computer system. Mr. Awan has been banned from the congressional network because of a criminal investigation into the alleged cybersecurity violations.

I need to say here that in spite of this blog, I am not a computer person and am not in danger of becoming one. However, I saw “War Games” and remember the comment that programmers often put ‘back doors’ in their programs. I checked with my husband, who is a computer person, and he assured me that programmers do things like that. Therefore, it should not be a surprise to anyone that Mr. Awan set up a secret email account. The article notes that authorities shut down Mr. Awan’s known email account in early February. If The Daily Caller knows about the second account, do the authorities? Now that this story is out, when will the second account be shut down? Are there more accounts? What is being done with the information collected in these accounts?

The story gets even more strange. The article reports:

Imran Awan’s still-active email address is linked to the name of a House staffer who specializes in intelligence and homeland security matters for Indiana Democratic Rep. André CarsonCourt documents and emails obtained by TheDCNF show Awan used the address 123@mail.house.gov in addition to his standard imran.awan@mail.house.gov account.

He and two of his Pakistani-born brothers, as well as his wife, are at the center of an FBI investigation over their IT work with dozens of Democratic congressional offices. Authorities shut down Awan’s standard email account Feb. 2, and he was arrested by the FBI at Dulles International Airport trying to board a flight to his native Pakistan on July 25.

Authorities apparently did not realize Awan has a second account that is not linked to his identity. While his main email address began rejecting mail after it was shut down, the 123 address was still accepting mail Tuesday.

Why doesThe Daily Caller has better investigators than the government?

The article further states:

Until last year, email addresses were created by individual offices, but now members have to request HIR to set up new addresses. Carson’s office is not showing any concern that an indicted IT guy apparently set up a secret email address using the name of his deputy chief of staff, who is also his top intelligence staffer, and that the account is still active. Since the account was still accepting emails as of Tuesday afternoon, it appears Carson’s office has not alerted anyone of the security vulnerability.

I have a feeling that if someone (whoever that someone may be) successfully unravels all the threads in this case, they will have made major progress in draining the swamp that is Washington, D.C. (if they are able to stay alive). That may be the reason most of the media is ignoring something that is major in terms of espionage and national security.

 

Ignoring A Major Story

Yesterday Newsbusters posted an article which reveals how biased our mainstream media has become. If you depend on the mainstream media for your news, the following events may come as a surprise to you.

The article lists the timeline on the scandal involving the Information Technology specialists working for many of the Democrats in Congress. This is the timeline (the story has been covered from the beginning by The Daily Caller):

  • August 1GOP Rep: House IT Scandal Among ‘All-Time Congressional Scandals’ Of Last 30 Years.” That time frame would take things back to before the infamous House Bank scandal, which ended the careers of dozens of Congresspersons who routinely wrote checks despite having insufficient funds in their House Bank accounts to cover them. Of the 22 congresspersons singled out for particularly egregious abuse in this scandal (and although, to be clear, many other congresspersons engaged in the practice), 18 were Democrats.
  • August 3“Florida Congressman Pays Girlfriend’s Family, Money Launderer For Unexplained Work.” If it involves Florida and political corruption, you almost have to know that the name of Congressman Alcee Hastings, who was one a federal judge until he was impeached and convicted by the House and Senate, respectively, in 1989, will come up. In this instance, Hastings allegedly “used his taxpayer-funded office to pay high salaries to a convicted money launderer, as well as Hastings’s girlfriend and her daughter, and the Florida politician won’t say what kind of work the convicted money launder(er) does.” This is potentially relevant to the Imran Awan case because it “raise(s) questions about how common it is for members of Congress to place ‘ghost employees’ on the payroll” — an allegation which potentially applies to Awan’s vastly overpaid relatives.
  • August 4“DWS: Imran Awan Is The Kindest, Bravest, Warmest, Most Wonderful Human Being I’ve Ever Known In My Life.” This item by Jim Treacher, whose penetrating sarcasm is a national treasure, isn’t newsworthy by itself, but it does link to a Broward County (FL) Sun Sentinel item where Wasserman Schultz ridicules the notion that Awan was trying to flee the U.S. when he was arrested at Dulles Airport after having transferred about $300,000 to an account or accounts in Pakistan. If a Republican congressman made such a claim about an aide in a similar situation, the late-night leftist activists posing as comedians would be all over it.
  • August 4 — “Wasserman Schultz Says Laptop She Sought To Keep From Police Was Awan’s, Not Hers.” Imagine that: After resisting police efforts to seize the laptop based on issues relating to whether it belongs to a “member” (of Congress), Wasserman Schultz has now totally changed her tune, claiming that, in reporter Luke Rosiak’s words, “it was Imran’s laptop but purchased using taxpayer funds from her office,” and that, in her words, “This was not my laptop. I have never seen that laptop. I don’t know what’s on the laptop.”
  • August 5Jeb Bush Just RIPPED Debbie Wasserman Schultz Over The House IT Scandal.” What Bush said or didn’t say isn’t nearly as important as the should-be-obvious point that if someone like Chuck Schumer or Andrew Cuomo was “ripping” a Republican involved in a scandal like this, you’d have to rent a major hotel meeting room to accommodate the establishment media horde which would be hanging on their every word instead of ignoring the successful governor of one of the nation’s largest states.
  • August 8“Grassley Seeks Immigration Files For Pakistani Suspects In House IT Probe.” Yes, “suspects” is plural: “the immigration files were requested for … (Imran Awan’s) wife, Hina Alvi, his brothers Abid and Jamal, sister-in-law Natalia Sova and friend Rao Rabbas. All are suspects in the criminal investigation, which became public in February.”
  • August 17“Two Former Wasserman Schultz IT Aides Indicted For Conspiracy Against US.”
  • August 18“Media Ignores Indictment Of Wassermann Schultz IT Aide.” How often does the actual indictment of criminal arrested on serious charges while potentially facing far more serious charges relating to a congressional scandal get totally ignored by the establishment press? I’m sorry, I meant to ask how often that happens if the person involved is or is associated with a Republican or conservative. Answer: almost never.
  • August 22“Dem Rep Dodges Questions On Arrested House IT Staffer.” New York Congresswoman Yvette Clarke “agreed last year to sign away $120,000 of missing computer equipment for the two former IT aides who authorities now believe stole the gear from Congress,” and “refused to answer questions” from a reporter about Awan.
  • August 24“DWS ‘Islamophobia’ Claim Prompts Angered Marine To Go Public On Awans.” Yes, Wasserman Schultz and Awan’s Bill Clinton-connected lawyer are claiming that the matter is of no substance, and that it’s really about “Islamophobia.” It’s really hard to blame the Marine involved for getting extremely angry over this when he sees someone who has sworn to uphold the Constitution and protect this country’s interest so obviously demonstrate that she cares about neither.

Isn’t this story newsworthy?

The Investigation The Mainstream Media Seems To Have Missed

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about Imran Awan and his brothers who managed the Information Technology affairs for several Democratic government officials.

The article includes a video that explains how seriously the activities of this family may have impacted the security of the United States. Here is the video:

The article reports:

Democrats were willing or unwillingly compromised by the Awans and sensitive information leaked to foreign Enemies

On Monday Judge Napolitano dropped this bomb on the Imran Awan investigation.
Judge Nap says Awan was selling US secrets to foreign agents.

Judge Napolitano: He was arrested for some financial crime. That’s the tip of the iceberg. The real crime against him was that he had contact, he had access to emails of every member of Congress and he sold what he found in there. What did he sell and to whom did he sell it. That’s what the FBI wants to know. This may be a very, very serious national security investigation.

At some point it would be nice if the mainstream media would follow this story.

An Investigation The Mainstream Media Is Ignoring

In February I posted an article about the Pakistani Information Technology people hired by the Democrats in Congress that are being investigated for “serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network.”

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an update on the story.

The article reports:

FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s information technology (IT) administrator, according to an individual who was interviewed by Bureau investigators in the case and a high level congressional source.

Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back, the individual told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

The congressional source, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, confirmed that the FBI has joined what Politico previously described as a Capitol Police criminal probe into “serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network” by Imran and three of his relatives, who had access to the emails and files of the more than two dozen House Democrats who employed them on a part-time basis.

Capitol Police have also seized computer equipment tied to the Florida lawmaker.

The Daily Caller has been following this story since it began. There are a number of very unusual elements in this story–the fact that Imran Away and his relatives were given security clearances in the first place is rather puzzling–they had financial problems, bankruptcies, and other red flags that usually prevent people from getting clearances.

In May, The Daily Caller pointed out another odd aspect of this story:

Five Capitol Hill technology aides told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group that members of Congress have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty towards the suspects who police say victimized them. The baffled aides wonder if the suspects are blackmailing representatives based on the contents of their emails and files, to which they had full access.

“I don’t know what they have, but they have something on someone. It’s been months at this point” with no arrests, said Pat Sowers, who has managed IT for several House offices for 12 years. “Something is rotten in Denmark.”

There definitely is “something rotten in Denmark,” and hopefully the seizing of the hard drives from Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz will reveal exactly what that is.

Meanwhile, don’t look for much coverage of this story in the mainstream media.