[ April 24, 2024 ]
A Texas Republican is wondering aloud if Imran Awan, the Pakistani-born Muslim at the heart of an IT scandal plaguing Capitol Hill — and Debbie Wasserman Schultz — purposely left a trail of evidence to implicate the former Democratic National Committee chair, to include a laptop she used that was seized by the FBI.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, commenting to the Daily Caller, said it seems very unlikely Awan could mistakenly leave behind such crucial items.
It’s all the more curious when realized that by all accounts, Awan was a very strategic, calculating person.
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Here’s more, from the Daily Caller, starting with background about the IT scandal:
A laptop that Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has frantically fought to keep prosecutors from examining may have been planted for police to find by her since-indicted staffer, Imran Awan, along with a letter to the U.S. Attorney.
U.S. Capitol Police found the laptop after midnight April 6, 2017, in a tiny room that formerly served as a phone booth in the Rayburn House Office Building, according to a Capitol Police report reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group. Alongside the laptop were a Pakistani ID card, copies of Awan’s driver’s license and congressional ID badge, and letters to the U.S. attorney. Police also found notes in a composition notebook marked “attorney-client privilege.”
The laptop had the username “RepDWS,” even though the Florida Democrat and former Democratic National Committee chairman previously said it was Awan’s computer and that she had never even seen it.
Hhe is a suspect in a cybersecurity investigation, but he still had access to House facilities because Wasserman Schultz continued to employ him.
The laptop was found on the second floor of the Rayburn building — a place Awan would have had no reason to go because Wasserman Schultz’s office is in the Longworth building and the other members who employed him had fired him.
Wasserman Schultz used a televised May 18, 2017 congressional hearing on the Capitol Police budget to threaten “consequences” if Chief Matthew Verderosa did not give her the laptop. “If a member loses equipment,” it should be given back, she said.
Verderosa told her the laptop couldn’t be returned because it was tied to a criminal suspect. Wasserman Schultz reiterated that, while Awan was a suspect, the computer should be returned because it is “a member’s … if the member is not under investigation.”
She changed her story two months later, claiming it was Awan’s laptop — bought with taxpayer funds from her office — and she had never seen it. She said she only sought to protect Awan’s rights. “This was not my laptop,” she said August 3. “I have never seen that laptop. I don’t know what’s on the laptop.”
Awan, his wife, Hina Alvi, and two of his Pakistani-born brothers are at the center of a joint FBI-Capitol Police cybersecurity criminal investigation of their IT work for dozens of Democratic House members.
Awan was arrested by the FBI at Dulles International Airport July 25, 2017, while trying to board a flight to his native Pakistan and then indicted on four counts of bank fraud in connection with his wire transfer of nearly $300,000 to Pakistan. The bank fraud charges are tangential to the cybersecurity probe.
The circumstances of the laptop’s appearance described in the police report suggest Wasserman Schultz was trying to keep the police from reviewing a laptop that Awan himself may have wanted them to find. The former phone booth room where police found the items is small, and there was no obvious reason to enter it.
Leaving important items there accidentally would seem extremely unlikely, according to Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, former prosecutor, and member of the House Judiciary Committee.
“Imran Awan is a calculating person who made great efforts to cover his tracks, both electronically and physically,” Gohmert told TheDCNF. “Placing that laptop with his personal documents, which may well incriminate him, those he worked for, or both, in the dead of night in a House office building, was a deliberate act by a cunning suspect, and it needs to be investigated.”
Even though the laptop was allegedly used only by an IT aide who worked for numerous members, Wasserman Schultz has hired an outside counsel, William Pittard, to argue that the laptop not be examined. Pittard argued that the speech and debate clause — which only protects a member’s information directly related to legislative duties — should prevent prosecutors from examining the laptop’s contents, TheDCNF has learned. Pittard did not respond to requests for comment.
Pittard, a partner with KaiserDillon, is the former acting general counsel of the House. Hiring an outside counsel to argue the speech and debate clause on behalf of Wasserman Schultz is highly unusual, because the general counsel of the House offers opinions on speech and debate issues for free.
The most recent notable example of a member hiring an outside attorney to argue a more aggressive interpretation is former Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson, who was convicted Aug. 4, 2009 of “using his office to try to enrich himself and relatives through a web of bribes and payoffs involving business ventures in Africa.” Investigators found $100,000 in cash in his freezer.
The collection of documents found in Rayburn tied the laptop to Awan and ensured that police would keep the computer. The reporting officer wrote that when he saw Awan’s name, he recalled guarding an interrogation of him a few months earlier. The “attorney client privilege” notation also prevented police from immediately reviewing some of the papers.
Nonetheless, the officer opened the MacBook and found that its login screen did not have Awan’s username, but rather “RepDWS.”
A police report reviewed by TheDCNF said:
On 4/6/2017 at 0021 hours, with the building closed to the public, AOC informed USCP Rayburn offices of an unattended bag in the phone booth on the 2nd floor. The officer received the open-contents visible bag and prepared a found property report. While reviewing the inventory of the bag contents, the officer found
#1 a Pakistani ID card with the name Mohommed Ashraf Awan
#2 a copy – not original – of a drivers license with name Imran Awan
#3 a copy (front and back) of his congressional ID
#4 an Apple laptop with the homescreen initials ‘RepDWS’
#5 composition notebooks with notes handwritten saying ‘attorney client privilege’ and possibly discussing case details below
#6 loose letters addressed to US Attorney of DC discussing the apparent owner of the bag being investigated. Approximately 3-4 months ago officer was requested by SAA as police presence of 4 individuals being interviewed, including the bag owner. It is unknown to the officer whether he is still employed.
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17 Comments
6 years ago
Perhaps this should be a lesson to all the liberal Jews (and liberals in general) who think Muslims are your friends. All Muslims hate infidels, Jews especially! Some Muslims are more open and vocal about it, the rest pretend to be your pals while hiding their true feelings.
6 years ago
Reply to
caliroxanne
Yes, liberals tend to see victims in everything, Muslims try to play the victim in everything, so naturally the two are attracted to one another.
6 years ago
Reply to
R. Arandas
Anyone with a grievance rallies behind Islam. Islam represents everything that is anti-Judeo-Christian, anti-American, anti-First World, anti-capitalism, etc. At any left wing protest, you’ll find the Palestinian flag, the new symbol of resistance to all things traditional, proudly and prominently displayed.
6 years ago
Reply to
Robert Kahlcke
my best friend’s mother-in-law makes $80 /hour on the laptop . She has been out of a job for 8 months but last month her pay was $21432 just working on the laptop for a few hours. find out here now
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6 years ago
Reply to
Robert Kahlcke
last thursday I got a top of the range Ariel Atom from bringing in $9278 this past 4 weeks and a little over ten-grand this past-munth . with-out any doubt it’s the most comfortable job I’ve ever done . I actually started six months/ago and almost straight away was bringing home over $73 per/hr . learn this here now
6 years ago
…The plot thickens.
D
6 years ago
Reply to
Mahou Shoujo
That was an interesting article. I didn’t share it because I thought it was too speculative. Do you think I was being too skeptical?
6 years ago
Reply to
AlgorithmicAnalyst
There is more than a slight element of speculation in it, reds more like fiction, I think. No you are not excessively skeptical.
6 years ago
Two words: Seth Rich.
6 years ago
Reply to
MrLogical
I tend to agree with you regarding Seth Rich, mainly because DWS was behind the police shutting down the investigation and was a major player in shutting down the private investigator!
I also think she was more involved with Inwan on a personal level, at least at one time or another. I also think she had him on the books being paid until he was arrested, just to hedge her bets! She wanted him financially happy, because she knew law enforcement interviewed him more than once. Didn’t want him spilling any of the swamp creatures into the light of day!!
6 years ago
With all the reports circulating about the digital illiteracy of this jackwad it is highly doubtful he was being “crazy like a fox.”
6 years ago
She was warned what might happen if he was found out! 
6 years ago
So this guy was trying to flee the country when the police caught up with him. Then he had deliberately left this behind. I would sure like to know what’s on that laptop.
6 years ago
Choice, either flip or go to jail.
6 years ago
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a Extreme Left-Wing Liberal Democrat and she has Turned her Back on our ONE TRUE GOD the FATHER and HIS SON Jesus-Yeshua Christ!! She is Anti-Christian and Jewish people / Anti-Israel-Yisrael / Antisemitism / Anti-USA Capitalism and Constitution!! She is a muslim brotherhood member and Sympathizer!!
( II Chronicles 7:14 KJV ) “If My people, which are called by My Name, shall Humble themselves, and Pray, and Seek My Face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from Heaven, and Will Forgive their sin, and Will Heal Their Land.”!!
Please Pray for Israel-Yisrael / Christian Nation United States of America, and our Christian Earth Everyday “Pray Without Ceasing.” ( 1 Thessalonians 5:17 KJV )!!
Love Always and Shalom ( Peace ), YSIC o/
Kristi
