“Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, have suggested that police had framed the Pakistani-born brothers out of Islamophobia.”
Amid the claims and relentless attacks against the president, it should come as no surprise the tactics some Democrats have adopted. Former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, who was forced to resign after her internal bias for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Saunders came to light, is once more in hot water.
We hear again and again how terrible it was for Russians to release damaging emails and other internal communications from within the DNC. The constant finger pointing to Putin or Trump as the puppet masters pulling strings is becoming laughable.
Enter the DNC Information Technology (IT) department. It does not take a master investigator to put these pieces together. Wasserman-Schultz’s top IT aide was arrested Monday attempting to flee to Pakistan after wiring $283,000 from the Congressional Federal Credit Union to that country. The FBI apprehended him at Dulles International Airport.
In a story of unbelievable incompetence, the FBI details the circumstances around the Credit Union allowing the wire to be processed. The FBI affidavit can be found here.
From the FBI Affidavit: “On January 18, 2017, at 12:09 pm, an international wire transfer request form was submitted [at the Congressional Federal Credit Union] at the Longworth House Office Building in the District of Columbia, in the amount of $283,000.00, to two individuals in Faisalabad, Pakistan.”
The affidavit also goes on to explain the circumstances surrounding a representative of the Congressional Federal Credit Union (CFCU) questioning the reason for the wire but in the end allowing it to be processed.
“The CFCU representative then stated that ‘funeral arrangements’ may not be an acceptable reason for the wire. The male speaking to the representative then responded that he would look online for an acceptable reason for the wire. After a long pause, the male said that the reason for the wire was ‘buying property.’ The representative accepted that reason and initiated the wire transfer to Pakistan,” according to the FBI affidavit.
Now someone tell me—if the wire transfer was for a funeral, and when that reason is no good, the reason changes to purchasing property, shouldn’t that have alerted the CFCU employee that the reasons were false? Is there anyone in their right mind who would believe this was an above board transaction?
Imran Awan, a Pakistani-born IT staffer, had access to all the emails and files of dozens of members of Congress, as well as the password to the iPad that Wasserman-Schultz used for Democratic National Committee business before she resigned as its head in July 2016.
It is entirely possible the emails and messages that the DNC is so upset about being leaked through what they say was Russian hacking were already compromised by the DNC’s own people.
In March, Imran’s wife Hina Alvi, who was also on the House payroll, withdrew her children from school and left the country, the affidavit says. The Capitol Police confronted her at the airport but could not stop her.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection conducted a search of Alvi’s bags immediately prior to her boarding the plane and located a total of $12,400.00 in US cash inside. Alvi was permitted to board the flight to Qatar and she and her daughters have not returned to the United States,” the affidavit says.
Astounding lack of judgment by the DNC
Soon after Imran began working for Wasserman-Schultz in 2005, four of his relatives appeared on the payroll of other Democrats at inflated salaries, but Democratic staffers said they were rarely seen at work. They collected $4 million in taxpayer salaries since 2009.
Even after being notified that Imran and his relatives were suspects in a criminal investigation into the theft and IT abuses and they were banned from the Capitol network, Wasserman-Schultz refused to fire Imran. This is despite being a known criminal suspect in a cyber security probe for months.
She then took the tactic of blocking Capitol police from searching a laptop they confiscated. The laptop is part of the criminal investigation involving Awan. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz threatened the chief of the US Capitol police with “consequences” for holding equipment that she says belongs to her in order to build a criminal case against Awan involving funneling sensitive congressional data offsite.
It appears the Florida lawmaker used her position on the committee that sets the police force’s budget to press its chief to relinquish the piece of evidence in what could be considered using her authority to attempt to interfere with a criminal investigation. Even after other staffers fired Awan and he was blocked from having access to the House servers, Wasserman-Schultz kept him on the payroll. She kept him on as a technology adviser until after he was arrested attempting to flee the country Monday night.
The investigation widens
The FBI has joined the investigation and seized smashed hard drives from Imran Awan’s home. The next day, the FBI apprehended him at Dulles Airport after noticing that he had purchased a ticket to Pakistan via Qatar.
The Awans own numerous rental properties that often have multiple mortgages taken out on them, and they have told renters they want payments in untraceable ways. The charging documents say Imran’s wife Hina Alvi, who also made $165,000 working for House Democrats, took out a second mortgage against a house from the Congressional Federal Credit Union by falsely claiming it was her “principal residence” and that she will “occupy” the property, and also fraudulently reported no rental income on her taxes.
Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, have suggested that police had framed the Pakistani-born brothers out of Islamophobia. In March, Hina Alvi, Awan’s wife, was let go as IT support staff for Rep. Gregory Meeks.
Bill Miller, the spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Awan “was arraigned today in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on one count of bank fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344. He pled not guilty and was released pursuant to a high-intensity supervision program. The conditions of release are that he receive a GPS monitor, he abide by a curfew of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., and that he not leave a 50-mile radius of his residence in Virginia. Awan was also ordered to turn over all of his passports.”
The Awan brothers could read all emails sent and received by these members of Congress, as well as all files on their staffers’ computers:
Marcia Fudge (D-OH), Tim Ryan (D-OH), Jim Costa (D-CA), Sander Levin (D-MI), Debbie Wasserman (D-FL), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), John Sarbanes (D-MD), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Frederica Wilson (D-FL), Cedric Richmond (D-LA), and the entire Democratic Caucus.
Chris Gowen, Imran Awan’s lawyer, is a long-time campaigner for former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He also worked for the Clinton Foundation and its Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
Gowen described Awan’s arrest as “clearly a right-wing media-driven prosecution by a United States Attorney’s Office that wants to prosecute people for working while Muslim.”
Yep, there is the dreaded race card again. So as the Democrats make their counter-accusations, I would sure like a few questions of my own answered.
- Are there no qualified US citizens that could have done this work?
- Why did the Democratic party hire unproven IT staff from Pakistan?
- Why did the DNC employ so many of this same family at such high rates?
- Why retain the Pakistani IT staffers when they were under investigation for various felonies?
- Why was Awan not fired by Wasserman-Shultz until after his arrest?
So many questions, so few answers. And when you can’t answer the questions, you “admit nothing, deny everything, and make counter-accusations.”
