More Evidence of Political Coverup in Dem IT Security Scandal

More evidence has surfaced about the disturbing political coverup of grave national security violations committed by the Pakistani who ran House Democrats’ information technology. His name is Imran Awan and last year he was arrested on bank-fraud charges at Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C. while trying to flee to his native Pakistan. Even after getting fired by some members of Congress for stealing computers and data systems, Florida’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair, kept him and let him have access to her emails and files as well as the password to the electronic device she used for DNC business. At one point, Awan had access to the computers of dozens of members of Congress, including those on the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees. Judicial Watch has launched an investigation and is pursuing public records.

The government’s bizarre failure to prosecute Awan for the national security violations he appears to have committed points to a political coverup that’s dangerous, craven and borders on traitorous. A House Office of Inspector General investigation determined earlier this year that Awan and his relatives committed numerous violations of House security policies, including logging into the House Democratic Caucus server thousands of times without authorization. The same news agency that reported that story published alarming new revelations in the case this month, concluding that “Democrats appear to want to keep the case out of court” because “a trial could expose their reckless IT practices.” It turns out that, not only has Capitol Police failed to make any arrests, it inadvertently gave evidence to defense attorneys that was supposed to go to prosecutors. It gets better; prosecutors appear to be sharing information with someone on Capitol Hill who in turn is leaking it to Awan’s lawyer.

Here is an excerpt from the news article published just a few days ago: “The Capitol Police turned over a trove of evidence in the alleged Imran Awan House cyberbreach and theft case to the defense attorneys when they were supposed to deliver it to prosecutors instead, according to court documents and a source.” Someone inside government apparently tipped off Awan’s lawyer, Chris Gowen, that a reporter was digging around for information on the Capitol Police’s suspicious mistake involving the mishandling of evidence. Gowen, a former public defender in Miami Florida, worked for Bill Clinton and on Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential campaign. The exchange of information (known as discovery) in a federal criminal case occurs between prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and defense lawyers by either registered mail or a third-party copy service. Law enforcement is never involved, according to federal law enforcement sources contacted by Judicial Watch.

Legal experts and veteran federal agents contacted by Judicial Watch say something smells rotten in this case. The so-called inadvertent disclosure to Awan’s defense team by Capitol Police was intentional for one of two reasons, the experts assert. Perhaps the prosecution is alerting the defense of particular facts of the case to generate cooperation and further the probe into political figures. “This is possible because prosecutors are always gun shy when it comes to prosecuting political figures, especially the figures who may be culpable in the case,” said a longtime Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official who has worked on similar cases. “They do not want to go to trial for a number of reasons, so they are showing their hand to induce a plea with cooperation.”

The second reason, according to Judicial Watch’s sources, is that there is corruption and the inadvertent disclosure was purposeful to help bolster the defense without being obvious and backing down in court. “Either way, something is up,” a longtime federal agent told Judicial Watch. “I have never heard of anyone at the federal level inadvertently handing over documents to the defense en mass like this, never happens.” Chris Farrell, Judicial Watch’s Director of Investigations and Research, maintains that “the Awan case has all the characteristics of a major national security crime, specifically, 18 USC Sec 793(f),” which carries a punishment of up to 10 years in prison. A former military intelligence officer specializing in counterintelligence and human intelligence, Farrell added that treating the Awan case as anything less than a major national security crime is either negligence or complicity. “The bungled handling of evidence is disgraceful and amateurish,” Farrell said, adding that “the effort to bury, constrain and minimize the Awan case is deeply disturbing, and points to the need for a legitimate, full investigation by a competent law enforcement agency with substantial experience in counterintelligence and cyber-crime arenas.”