Free Republic

IN NEWLY OBTAINED MEMO, CONGRESS’S TOP COP SAID HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS SERVER VANISHED 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...

Justice Department prosecutors and congressional investigators both cannot be right about the House IT scandal by Mark Tapscott | Updated 05 Jul 2018 at 7:47 AM When Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors announced Tuesday they won’t press charges against House IT scandal kingpin Imran Awan, they violated one of the most fundamental rules of logic, the law of non-contradiction: That which is A cannot simultaneously also be non-A. Either Awan, his wife, two of his brothers and an unrelated friend — all of whom at one time or another since 2005 worked as IT aides for more than 40 House...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed a plea deal Tuesday to Imran Awan — former IT staffer for top House Democrats — which states the federal government found “no evidence” that Awan “violated federal law with respect to House computer systems.” The plea deal states: The Government has uncovered no evidence that your client violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems. Particularly, the Government has found no evidence that your client illegally removed House data from the House network or from House Members’ offices, stole the House Democratic Caucus Server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment,...

Alex Pappas: "NEW: It appears ex-Dem IT aide Imran Awan and his wife Hina Alvi have struck a deal with prosecutors: court filing says a plea agreement hearing has been set for July 3."

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has recused herself from a second case involving Trump dossier firm Fusion GPS. Tanya S. Chutkan, an Obama appointee, recused herself on Monday from a case involving a dispute over subpoenas issued for Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned the dossier. Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian tech executive accused in the dossier of hacking Democrats’ computer systems, has sought to subpoena Fusion GPS records and to depose its employees to find out more about the research firm’s work on the dossier. Gubarev is suing BuzzFeed for defamation for publishing the dossier earlier this year. He...

Multiple reports have detailed the equipment and nearly $6 million a Pakistani family of IT specialists allegedly took from the U.S. government while running computer networks for numerous congressional Democrats. But that’s only money and equipment, says a U.S. congressman who contends that the biggest problem is the classified information to which the Awan family had access. The taxpayers’ dollars confiscated from Congress is “not the highest of our concerns,” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told WND in an interview about the case of IT staffer Imran Awan, his brothers Abid and Jamal, and their wives Natalia Sova and Hina Alvi.

A former House Democrat tech staffer who fled the country to Pakistan while under criminal investigation has struck a deal with federal officials to return to the U.S. and appear at an arraignment, according to court documents. Hina Alvi is the wife of Imran Awan, and both face charges of conspiracy and bank fraud. Both worked for Democrats for several years, and Awan worked directly for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., when she was chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. A document filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia indicates that federal prosecutors have struck a...

A federal grand jury Thursday indicted two former information technology (IT) aides of Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz — Pakistani-born Imran Awan and his wife Hina Alvi — on four counts of conspiracy in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.The FBI arrested Awan at Dulles International Airport July 24 as he was preparing to board a flight to Pakistan. When his wife Alvi left the U.S. for Pakistan in March, federal authorities found more than $12,000 in cash hidden in a suitcase. She had withdrawn the couple’s three children from local schools and does not intend to...

Also indicted was Awan’s wife, Hina Alvi, who also worked as an IT aide in Democratic congressional offices. The charges don’t have a direct relationship to their work in congressional offices, but the criminal charges add to the political heat directed toward their congressional employers, especially Wasserman Schultz.

Imran Awan, a former IT aide for Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was indicted Thursday on four counts including bank fraud and making false statements. The indictment also includes his wife Hina Alvi. The grand jury decision in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia comes roughly a month after Awan was arrested at Dulles airport in Virginia trying to board a plane to Pakistan, where his family is from. Awan and other IT aides for House Democrats have been on investigators’ radar for months over concerns of possible double-billing, alleged equipment theft, and access to sensitive computer...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has requested copies of immigration files for the six Pakistani suspects in the House IT scandal, who allegedly stole equipment from Congress and accessed computers without permission.

Imran Awan was born in Pakistan in 1980. He sought his education in Information Technology. He first came to Capitol Hill in 2004 working for Florida Democrat Robert Wexler. He has worked as a shared employee for Democrats as an information technologist for 13 years. He is a Pakistani immigrant, who made his home in the US in Lorton, Virginia. He has actually provided technical support for 25 other House Democrats working as a shared employee. He, also, managed to get his wife, HIna Alvi, on the House payroll. Then his brother, Abid Awan, then Abid’s wife, Natalia Sova became...

The Daily Caller reported that the FBI has taken the smashed hard drives from the home of Pakistani-born Imran Awan, a former IT aide that worked for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). The Capitol Police took “computer equipment tied to the Florida lawmaker.”...Politico previously described as a Capitol Police criminal probe into ‘serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network'” by Awan, his wife Hina Alvi, and his brothers Abid and Jamal. The veteran discovered “wireless routers, hard drives that look like they tried to destroy, laptops, [and] a lot of brand new expensive toner.”[snip] Then Imran found out...

A criminal suspect in an investigation into a major security breach on the House of Representatives computer network has abruptly left the country and gone to Pakistan, where her family has significant assets and VIP-level protection, a relative and others told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group. Hina Alvi, her husband Imran Awan, and his brothers Abid and Jamal were highly paid shared IT administrators working for multiple House Democrats until their access to congressional IT systems was terminated Feb. 2 as a result of the investigation. Capitol Police confirmed the investigation is ongoing, but no arrests have been...

Congressional aides suspected of criminally misusing their access to House computer systems owed $100,000 to an Iraqi politician who is wanted by U.S. authorities and has been linked to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Middle Eastern terrorist outfit. Imran Awan and four of his relatives were employed as information technology (IT) aides by dozens of House Democrats, including members of the intelligence, foreign affairs and homeland security committees. The aides’ administrator-level IT access was terminated earlier this month amid a criminal probe by U.S. Capitol Police of a suspected security breach, including an off-site server housing congressional data. The Daily Caller News...

Two IT staffers who have been under investigation by Capitol Hill police for a month were fired this week by two House Democrats. Politico reports: Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) confirmed to Politico that Hina Alvi’s last day as an IT support staffer in his office was Tuesday. Her husband, Imran Awan, was working for Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) as of Tuesday evening, but a spokeswoman for Fudge said midday Wednesday that Awan was no longer an employee. As of Wednesday, Awan was still working as a technology adviser for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), although he’s been blocked from accessing...

Submitted by Duan via Free Market Shooter blog,Shortly after Trump took office, and before Rex Tillerson was even confirmed as Secretary of State, a slew of State Department officials were removed from their positions (or were forced to resign) as part of an effort to “clean house” at the State Department.  The whole affair was haphazardly covered by the media, especially by Jeff Bezos’s blog, which insinuated that the departures were “an ongoing mass exodus of senior Foreign Service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era.”Further analysis revealed that the officials were actually removed from...

Four people who worked for the House of Representatives have a history of massive debts and bankruptcy, a fondness for fast cars and real estate, and unusually complicated webs of intertwined finances. The three brothers and a wife of one of them are under criminal investigation into sensitive congressional information security. Chiefs of staff for dozens of Democratic lawmakers who employed the four were informed last week that a criminal probe was underway into their use of congressional information technology systems, including the existence of an external server to which House data was being funneled, and into the theft of...