Keeping staffers under criminal investigation employed and rigging a primary election process to the favor of the party-anointed candidate is certainly enough to make the list of “worst ethics violators.”
The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) released its list of “top 5 ethics violators of 2017.” At the top of the list (second only to the unnamed members of Congress linked to the fresher- and ongoing- sexual harassment scandal) is US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).Imran Awan: The biggest scandal you've never heard of? Why mainstream media has been accused of ignoring the arrest of DNC staffer Imran Awan. ABC News Australia 9/1/17
DOJ agreees not to prosecute Imran Awan for House cybersecurity and theft, but questions remain
In September 2016, the House Office of Inspector General gave House leaders a presentation that alleged that Alvi, Imran, brothers Abid Awan and Jamal Awan, and a friend were logging into the servers of members who had previously fired him and funneling data off the network. It said evidence “suggests steps are being taken to conceal their activity” and that their behavior mirrored a “classic method for insiders to exfiltrate data from an organization.”
Server logs show, it said, that Awan family members made “unauthorized access” to congressional servers in violation of House rules by logging into the servers of members who they didn’t work for.
The presentation especially found problems on one server, that of the House Democratic Caucus, an entity chaired at the time by then-Rep. Xavier Becerra of California.
On Feb. 3, 2017, Paul Irving, the House’s top law enforcement officer, wrote in a letter to the Committee on House Administration that soon after it became evidence, the server went “missing.”
The letter continued: “Based upon the evidence gathered to this point, we have concluded the employees are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems.”
Imran, Abid, Jamal, Alvi and a friend were banned from the House network the same day Kiko sent the letter.
. . .
Imran wasn’t arrested until July 2017, when he tried to leave the country and was taken into custody at Dulles airport. His lawyer is Chris Gowen, a former aide to Hillary Clinton.
Wasserman Schultz kept paying Awan after he was banned from Congress. A Capitol Police report shows that in April 2016, Imran left a laptop with the username RepDWS in a Capitol Hill phone booth late at night, and it was taken by police.
Police said they needed it as evidence, but Wasserman Schultz pledged “consequences” for the police chief. Wasserman Schultz’ brother, a prosecutor in the D.C. US Attorney’s office, has tweeted about the case under the handle “fedpros.”
Gowen said he felt “very strongly” that the RepDWS laptop should not be examined, and prosecutors never publicly challenged that request.
No one else connected to Imran that was banned from the House has been charged, yet the House has not re-instated them. Imran, Hina, Abid and Jamal have also shared IT duties with Haseeb Rana, former McDonalds worker Rao Abbas and Nataliia Sova, a Ukrainian who is married to Abid.
House officials told TheDCNF that the vast majority of evidence about misconduct allegations on Capitol Hill — including $120,000 in missing equipment from the office of Yvette Clarke — is actually against Abid, not Imran.
Capitol Hill officials involved in oversight of the case previously told TheDCNF that the reason the DOJ was not pursuing the case was because the Democrats were refusing to press charges.
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| What did Imran Awan have on Democrats that Debbie Wasserman Schultz fought so to pay and protect him? |
"Justice Department covers up possible spy ring scandal in Democratic congressional offices" - Opinion by Frank Miniter, Fox News, July 3, 2018. Video with Daily Caller's Investigative Reporter Luke Rosiak
In an incredible sweetheart plea deal, Imran Awan – a former IT aide to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and other congressional Democrats – pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of making a false statement on a home equity loan.
Shockingly, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia issued a news release about Awan’s plea agreement that made no mention of his IT work for Democrats in Congress, no mention of Wasserman Schultz, and made his case sound like a minor local criminal matter of little interest to anyone. It was headlined: “Virginia Man Pleads Guilty to Making False Statement on Application for Home Equity Loan.”Ho-hum, right? Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.
Even on the simple theft of government equipment there is a lot there for prosecutors. One of Awan’s former tenants, a retired U.S. Marine, even found and turned over to authorities several computers and smart phones with government markings on them that he found in Awan’s rental property.
There is also internal U.S. House of Representatives’ paperwork detailing some of what went on in the offices Awan and his associates who did contract IT work for congressional Democrats.
Internal House Inspector General findings have also determined that Awan copied the emails of up to 44 Democratic House members and other personal data and backed them up to a server that reportedly went missing and to a Dropbox account.
Awan, his wife and other relatives and friends were also all paid exorbitant salaries for working as IT contractors for members of Congress for years – even though many of them didn’t have any expertise in IT and even though they didn’t undergo background checks.
It is also likely that a few of Awan’s associates didn't even show up to earn all the money they were paid. Still, no charges have been filed against Awan or his brothers relating to alleged thefts, possible espionage and for providing false information (an image of the Democratic House Caucus computer server) to Capitol Police.
It is actually very hard to sum-up all that this group of IT aides (who are almost all from Pakistan) did and the crimes they might have committed.
Writing a book on the topic was like piecing together an international spy thriller filled with anonymous sources, encrypted conversations, off-the-record meetings, foreign documents and hard facts from various court filings and from internal investigations in the House.
What is clear to me, after interviewing so many people, is there is a lot of evidence here for investigators, but also a lot of political reasons why they might want this case to go away.
Awan was even Wasserman Schultz’s IT aide when she headed the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which incidentally was when the DNC was hacked and the information given to Wikileaks.
I have no evidence that Awan was in any way responsible for the leak. Still, it is incredible how much of all this interconnects circumstantially.
Real court scenes (when Awan pleaded guilty and waved his right to a trial by jury), possible depositions of House staffers and members of Congress, and the investigations that would take place if the Justice Department pursued additional charges would have necessarily dug into a lot of things the Washington establishment would rather not deal with publicly. It also would have forced investigators to follow the trail to Pakistan.
Still, I didn’t think these investigating agencies would be brazen enough to agree to this kind of a sweetheart deal for Imran Awan and wife, Hina Alvi. Now Awan will not face prosecution where the more serious allegations against him can be judged.Sentencing in House Democratic IT scandal lets Imran Awan off with only a slap on the wrist
What’s the big deal?
- Outside of the quaint idea that justice should be equal – even for members of Congress, their staffers and contractors – there are a lot of problems inherent in covering up this multifaceted case.
- Foreign intelligence agencies must have noticed how easy it was for the Awans to get access to the date and emails of so many members of Congress.
- The slap on the wrist that Awan received hardly acts as a deterrent to those who’d like to know what members of Congress are saying behind closed doors.
- As any computer security professional will tell you, the weakest part of any system is people. Security won’t be taken seriously if no one pays a price for allowing massive security breaches in Congress.
- President Trump’s tweets related to this case were even used as a rationale by Judge Chutkan to let Awan walk out of the courtroom with only three months supervised release.
- If there is one takeaway right now it’s that the Trump administration should demand an investigation by the Office of Inspector General into how this plea deal was made. The IG should also look into what actually happened in Congress. This case offers the president the opportunity to expose the swamp to the American people.
By covering this up, the establishment has left a lot to come out that will embarrass Congress, the mainstream media and the Justice Department.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz was sued, along with the DNC, for rigging the 2016 Democratic presidential primary in favor of Hillary Clinton by intentionally minimizing the Bernie Sanders campaign. IVN covered the Imran Awan story when most media outlets either refused to or ignored it completely.
Wasserman Schultz resigned as DNC chair in 2016 in the wake of the email scandal that exposed top party officials in the primary scheme, including Donna Brazile, who said the party under Wasserman Schultz’s leadership was essentially robbing state and local parties of funding and giving it to the Clinton camp.
In May 2018, The elections supervisor in Florida’s second-most populous county broke state and federal law by unlawfully destroying ballots cast in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s 2016 Democratic primary, a judge ruled Friday in a case brought by the congresswoman’s challenger, Tim Canova, who wanted to check for voting irregularities.
In the upcoming August 28th primary one would imagine that South Florida voters would recoil from Wasserman-Schulz' candidacy, if not any Democrat from the corruption-plagued party there.
Yet, in the wake of the media's distracting away from Hillary Clinton's scandals and corruption, and towards Democrat-directed imbroglios of Pres. Trump, voters are not only sticking with Debbie, they're prejudiced against their neighbors who don't oppose the president, much less voice their attitudes regarding the Democrat corruption or Republican policies.
We asked Alan Bergstein, president of the Judeo-Christian Republican Club of Palm Beach County to explain why Ms. Schultz is not only running unopposed in the Democrat primary, but expected to not face any consequences politically in the November election District 32 of South Florida.
Transcript:
A: Well, I'm the president of the Judeo-Christian Republican Club of Palm Beach County.
Q: Who are the representatives in Congress from this region?
A: Ted Deutsch, Lois Frankel, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Alcee Hastings - all Democrats.
Q: Now with Debbie Wasserman Schultz how is she still supported in this region?
A: She is supported because she's a Democrat. If you're a Democrat, forget about the illegalities forget about criminalities, forget about indiscretions, figure out about illegalities. I'm gonna vote for you if I'm a Democrat and you're a Democrat- I'm gonna vote for you.
Q: But surely there are Democrats who were exposed by scandal all over the country who were disgraced and are forced to step down. Why not in her case?
A: Well you talk about her group or community they're not that much interested and they don't force her to step down. And to the Democrats in Washington DC this is not much of a scandal. She does what she has to do because she's a Democrat- and she
wins! She's popular and she wins! She could run for Congress for the rest of her life if there were no term limits. Debbie Wasserman Schultz could until she dies. S o no one cares.
Q: Well surely the news media, the local news media- newspapers and print, and electronic media must have exposed this
tremendous scandal that the whole rest of the country knows about, haven't they?
A: Not at all you wouldn't find anything about her DNC ... her guilt with the DNC and knocking out Bernie Sanders from the primary. You don't see that. You don't see Donna Brazile talk on the local media about how she consulted with the media and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to knock out Bernie Sanders. They don't put it out in the news. And these people around here in South Florida, the Democrats, don't care anyway. They vote for her because she's a Democrat.
She can do anything- they'll still vote for her.
Q: How strong is the Republican Party to put candidates and campaigns against her?
A: Well not here we're not strong down here. The Republican Party has to fight each two years to put a candidate to put a
candidate against Ted Deutsch and to put a candidate again against Lois Frankel.
The Republican Party refuses to put up and support a candidate to fight these Democrats. They say "why waste money time and effort on an election which you can't win?" I'm against this. I'm for supporting totally someone to knock out Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lois Frankel, Ted Deutsch. Focus on one at a time- focus on Ted this year, Lois Frankel next election, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz in next election. But they don't do that."
Brazile said the Clinton campaign was allowed to take over the Democratic Party completely way before Hillary won the nomination. Read more:
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| Carla Spalding leads Republican candidates in fundraising to challenge U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida's primary Tuesday 28 Aug (photo: Anthony Man/ Miami Herald) |
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article212328174.html
... in 2018, none of the five Democrats who represent South Florida in Congress face serious primary challengers. Wasserman Schultz didn't get a primary challenger after Canova decided to run as an independent. Wilson faces a candidate who lives in California and won 246 votes after running for an open congressional seat on the West Coast last year. Reps. Ted Deutch and Alcee Hastings face little-known Democratic challengers, while Rep. Lois Frankel is already assured another term in Congress after no one filed to run against her.
The appetite to challenge South Florida Democrats from within the party is nonexistent in this election cycle, even though some Miami-Dade and Broward Democrats in Congress took votes or stances over the past 18 months that have angered some on the left, such as Wasserman Schultz's and Deutch's support for moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and Hastings' recent vote in favor of a bill that eases regulations on big banks.
There are competitive Democratic primaries for open seats, such as retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's seat and the Florida governor's race.
All five incumbent congressional Democrats are heavily favored to win reelection, and Wasserman Schultz and Wilson managed to notch double-digit primary wins last cycle despite the presence of challengers who spent money on advertising and tried to poke holes in their records. Running a Sanders-style campaign is an uphill climb in South Florida, where Clinton's margin of victory in Miami-Dade and Broward outpaced her performance in other parts of the state.
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| While D.W.S. is unchallenged in the primary's Democrat column, Tim Canova (upper left) runs as Independent, and vying for the Republican nomination are (clockwise) Joe Kaufman, Carla Spalding, and Carlos Reyes. |
"Three Republicans have a dream of defeating Wasserman Schultz"" by Anthony Man, Nov, 20 '17, Sun-Sentinel
Even Richard DeNapoli, the state Republican committeeman for Broward and a former county Republican chairman, said it’s a “very tough” district for a candidate from his party. ... DeNapoli said it’s possible the national Republicans could give some attention to the Wasserman Schultz district, but that would likely come only to the candidate who raises a substantial sum without help — enough to prove credibility as a viable candidateNOQ Report endorses Joe Kaufman for Republican candidate in Florida's Congressional District 23:
The voters' affiliated-party breakdown is 45 percent Democratic, 25 percent Republican, and 30 percent Independent/no party affiliation voters (or members of third parties).
Republicans are heartened by what they hear from their fellow party members — a dislike for Wasserman Schultz, a liberal former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. She resigned under fire from that job in 2016. And they like that she’s facing a challenge in the Democratic primary from Tim Canova, who ran in 2016 and is running again in 2018.
Re-running, Republican candidate, Joe Kaufman said he isn’t sure he lost the 2016 election to Wasserman Schultz. He claims there was massive voter fraud in the district and said he might really have won. He doesn’t offer proof, and the results of the 2016 Wasserman Schultz victory were certified by all-Republican state Election Canvassing Board, led by Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Kaufman says, “I think I was robbed in the last election. On paper it shows I had 41 percent of the vote. But I believe it was a lot more than that. I have reason to believe I may have won the last election,” Kaufman said. He said state Republican officials didn’t investigate because “it’s very hard to go back on an election once it’s taken place.” Kaufman believes his experience as a repeat candidate is an advantage. “Every time I run, and this is going to be the fourth time I’ve run for this seat, every time I run I’ve done better and better.”
Still, the top Republican priorities in South Florida will be defending two incumbents, U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo in Miami-Dade County and U.S. Rep. Brian Mast in northern Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties, along with the seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Miami-Dade County.
A successful campaign in 2018 could empower Florida to be a red state in presidential elections to come.
District 23 is Debbie Wassermann Schultz’s seat. Hoping that third time’s the charm is true is Joe Kaufman. Perhaps it might be if he can make Schultz seem as incompetent and corrupt as she is. Debbie’s corruption is a huge tenant of his campaign, and that is the only way a Republican can flip this seat. Kaufman would have 50,000 votes to gain and the plummeting reputation of his opponents, paired with his ballot recognition enables him to do that. Another challenger is Carlos Reyes. He has a rather populist style campaign. It doesn’t seem like he’s a super conservative guy. Lastly, there is Carla Spalding. She ran independent against Brian Mast. She employs populist language of an independent while touting support for Trump’s wall and a number of his policies. Her stances are common sense, but very vague. There is no indication she would reduce spending.
Conservative Pick: Joe Kaufman
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