XPost: la.general, alt.fashion, talk.politics.misc
XPost: alt.mountain-bike

Perhaps you’ve lost track of the Democrats slowly exploding IT
scandal, as much of the media is doing all it can to simply
ignore it away.

I’m referring to the strange case of Imran Awan, the IT aide
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., kept on her congressional
payroll even after it became known he and his wife, Hina Alvi
Awan, were being investigated by the Capitol Police for possible
theft, fraud, moving terabytes of data off Congress’s system and
more.

Imran Awan was back in court last week. When pushed, Assistant
U.S. Attorney Michael Mirando revealed some telling things about
this case.

First, I should note that it was standing room only in the
packed courtroom at the U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia Friday morning ... okay, just kidding, actually, only a
few reporters sat in the mostly empty wooden benches in the back
of the courtroom. Anyone who didn’t know this was the latest
scene in a slowly exploding political scandal would have thought
this was only a forgettable bank fraud case.

The deeper you dig the more it becomes clear this case is about
much more than bank fraud.

Awan’s attorney, Chris Gowen, even told me: “This case is hardly
newsworthy.”

But before the show started, Imran’s wife, Hina Alvi Awan,
entered the courtroom. She had flown away to Pakistan with their
children soon after the investigation became known.

Was she back as part of a plea deal?

While Hina Alvi was gone, on August 17, 2017, a federal grand
jury indicted her and Awan on four counts, including conspiracy
and conspiring to obtain home equity loans for $165,000 and
$120,000 from the Wright Patman Congressional Federal Credit
Union and then transferring the money to Pakistan. (Read the
FBI’s criminal affidavit on the bank fraud here and you’ll see
why the government thinks it has a strong case.)

Imran Awan is considered such a flight risk that his passport
was taken, he was given a curfew and was fitted with a tracking
device.

Meanwhile, Hina Alvi’s passport was also publicly taken during
the court hearing, but she was officially listed as a “walk in,”
a tracking device wasn’t attached to her ankle and the
government had asked the court to quash an outstanding warrant
for her arrest.

Now came the revelations. Gowen, Imran’s attorney, asked that
Imran’s travel restrictions be removed.

This prompted Assistant U.S. Attorney Mirando to say that when
Imran was arrested at Dulles International Airport a cellphone
found on him “had been wiped clean just a few hours before.”

Gowen tried to counter this by saying, “Awan had recently bought
the phone, so of course it didn’t have any data on it.”

But Mirando was ready. He said the FBI found that the phone had
been wiped as clean as Hillary’s server. A time stamp on the
iPhone indicated it had been wiped at 6:30 p.m. that evening.
Also, Imran did have a laptop on him, but one of the few things
on it was a resume. Mirando used this and other details—such as
the Awans quickly selling many of their Virginia properties—to
explain that Imran had no intention of returning.

In another twist, Gowen brought up a computer that Rep. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz wants back so badly she actually threatened
the chief of the Capitol Police in a public hearing with
“consequences” if she didn’t get it back.

Gowen argued that the computer and documents seized in a bag
left in a public area of a congressional building around
midnight on April 6, 2017, are “protected by attorney-client
privilege.” Gowen hopes to remove this evidence from future
court proceedings.

Gowen, however, didn’t answer what Imran was doing in the
Longworth congressional building late at night and long after
he’d been fired by every Democrat aside from Rep. Wasserman
Schultz (Wasserman Schultz’s office isn’t in Longworth).

The deeper you dig the more it becomes clear this case is about
much more than bank fraud. Capitol Police are investigating
possible theft of congressional computer equipment, massive
amounts of data moved off the congressional system, alleged fake
computer data created to throw investigators off the trail, and
data mined by the Awans that could include emails from many
members of Congress and more.

Rep. Wasserman Schultz, who lost her post at the DNC when
WikiLeaks published emails showing that under her leadership the
DNC worked to sabotage Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign,
might be exposed to even more revelations.

Meanwhile, Congress has been asked to open an ethics
investigation to answer why Rep. Wasserman Schultz kept Imran on
her payroll even after the Capitol Police investigation became
known.

So does this sound like a small bank fraud story to you or is it
more likely that a lot more is going on here?

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/10/10/democrats-it-scandal- just-got-even-more-bizarre.html
 

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