Congress Pays $850,000 to Muslim Aides Targeted in Inquiry Stoked by Trump (FLASHBACK NOV. 25, 2020)

nytimes ^ | NOV. 25, 2020 | Noam Scheiber and Nicholas Fandos

[bitt]

The House resolved wrongful termination claims by five Pakistani-American technology workers whose case was twisted into a right-wing conspiracy theory pushed by President Trump.

The payments represent one of the largest known awards by the House to resolve discrimination or harassment claims.

The House of Representatives quietly paid $850,000 this year to settle wrongful termination claims by five Pakistani-American technology specialists, after a set of routine workplace allegations against them morphed into fodder for right-wing conspiracy theories amplified by President Trump.

Together, the payments represent one of the largest known awards by the House to resolve discrimination or harassment claims, and are designed to shield Congress from potentially costly legal action.

But aides involved in the settlement, which has not previously been reported, said it was also an attempt to bring a close to a convoluted saga that led to one of the most durable — and misleading — story lines of the Trump era. The aides said its size reflected a bid to do right by a group of former employees who lost their jobs and endured harassment in part because of their Muslim faith and South Asian origins.

What started as a relatively ordinary House inquiry into procurement irregularities by Imran Awan, three members of his family and a friend, who had a bustling practice providing members of Congress with technology support, was twisted into lurid accusations of hacking government information. In 2018, Mr. Trump stood next to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at a now-infamous news conference in Helsinki, and implied that one of the employees involved in the House case — a “Pakistani gentleman,” he said — could have been responsible for stealing emails of Democratic officials leaked during the 2016 campaign. His own intelligence agencies had concluded that the stolen emails were part of

[Liz]

Medium.com

2004 — Imran Awan comes to Capitol Hill and begins working for Rep. Robert Wexler (FL-D).
2004–2005 — Dr. Abdul Fadul bills Medicare and Medicaid thousands of times for procedures that weren’t performed, including ones billed by the Cardiovascular Center in La Plata.
2005 — Imran Awan begins working for Debbie Wasserman Schultz (DWS).

2005 — Abid Awan, Imran Awan’s brother, joins Imran Awan working for Capitol Hill......and Ted lieu.

2007 — Hina Alvi, Imran Awan’s wife, is added to Capitol Hill payroll. Rao Abbas, Imran Awan’s best friend, joins the payroll as well. Rao Abbas had previously lost his job at McDonalds. Note: IT services on the hill are a cost center.

This means that each elected official can decide who he/she employs for IT services and the IT professional bills the elected official’s office for services.

2008 — Hina Alvi purchases home for $470,000 in Lorton, Virginia.
2008 — Hina Alvi purchases a second home in Lorton, Virginia.
2008 — Imran Awan puts a home he owns in Springfield, Virginia in his father’s name.

[Grampa Dave]

Members of Congress are putting their shoulders to the wheel!

Which is tough, considering where their heads are.

Maxine Cartoon ~ March 5/6 - 2022