Memo: House Democratic Caucus Server Disappeared When it Became Evidence in Awan Probe
“While reviewing the inventory, the CAO discovered that the serial number of the server did not match that of the one imaged in September.”
The Daily Caller’s Luke Rosiak continues to do a great job with the story about Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz’s former IT aide Irwan Awan and his family.
The publication received a memo dated February 3, 2017, from Congress’s top cop Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving to the Committee on House Administration (CHA). Irving and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Phil Kiko wrote that the House Democratic Caucus’s server disappeared after it became evidence in the cybersecurity probe against Awan.
The two men “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 the integrity of our information systems and thereby members’ capacity to serve constituents.”
*UPDATE: The DOJ has decided not to prosecute Awan due to a plea deal he signed.
From The Daily Caller:
It details how the caucus server, run by then-caucus Chairman Rep. Xavier Becerra, was secretly copied by authorities after the House Inspector General (IG) identified suspicious activity on it, but the Awans’ physical access was not blocked.
But after, the report reads, the server appears to have been secretly replaced with one that looked similar.
The memo called for firing the Pakistani-born aides, revoking all their computer accounts, and changing the locks on any door they had access to.
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The February 2017 memo itemizes “numerous and egregious violations of House IT security” by members of the Awan family, including using Congress members’ usernames and “the unauthorized storage of sensitive House information outside the House.”
“These employees accessed user accounts and computers for offices that did not employ them, without the knowledge and permission of the impacted Member’s office,” it said, adding, “4 of the employees accessed the Democratic Caucus computers 5,735 times.” More than 100 office computers were open to access from people not on the office’s staff, it said.
The Daily Caller provided this outline from the memo:
• In September of 2016 … the CHA and [IG] briefed the former Chairman of the Democratic Caucus about suspicious activity related to their server that the [IG] identified. As a result, the former Chairman of the Democratic Caucus directed the CAO to copy the data from their server and two computers.
• The CHA directed the IG to refer the matter to the US Capitol Police. The USCP initiated an investigation that continues to this day.
• In late 2016, the former Chairman of the Democratic Caucus announced his intention to resign from Congress to assume a new position. The CAO and [sergeant-at-arms] worked with the Chairman to account for his inventory, including the one server.
• While reviewing the inventory, the CAO discovered that the serial number of the server did not match that of the one imaged in September. [Investigators] also discovered that the server in question [the replacement server] was still operating under the employee’s control, contrary to the explicit instructions of the former chairman to turn over all equipment and fully cooperate with the inquiry and investigation. [A House source said the “employee” was Abid Awan.]
• The USCP interviewed relevant staff regarding the missing server.
• On January 24, 2017, the CAO acquired the [replacement] server from the control of the employees and transferred that server to the USCP.
The IG report published in September 2016 detailed how “Becerra knew of problems months before the server disappeared.” In one instance, Becerra asked “one of the shared employees to not provide IT services or access their computers,” but the employee continued to do so.
An official identified that shared employee as Abid Awan, the sister-in-law to Irwan and the Caucus’s systems administrator.
Sources told The Daily Caller that soon after the IG released the report the server went missing. One official close to the CHA claimed that the Awan family “deliberately turned over a fake server” in order “to falsify evidence.”
So Irving sent this memo to CHA in February 2017, but Democrats insist no one told them about the cybersecurity issues:
Rep. Jackie Speier — a California Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who employed Imran and his wife, Hina Alvi — said she never heard of any missing server.
Joaquin Castro of Texas — another Democratic intelligence committee member who employed one of the Awans — told TheDCNF that Kiko never told him of any cybersecurity issues whatsoever and that the Awan probe was instead described as a theft issue.
What did CHA do? It only pushed out one statement and titled it “House Theft investigation.” It had nothing about the cybersecurity issues and was so vague:
“House Officials became aware of suspicious activity and alleged theft committed by certain House IT support staff. An internal investigation determined that a number of House policies and procedures had been violated. This information was turned over to the United States Capitol Police and their investigation is ongoing. These employees have also been blocked from accessing House systems. All offices impacted have been contacted. No further comment will be issued until the investigation is complete.”
This whole story came to light in July 2017 when the FBI arrested Imran for alleged bank fraud, which is what the Democrats have latched onto as a way to brush aside this scandal. But as The Daily Caller points out, Imran’s bank fraud case “does not explain why the Awans were kicked off the House network concurrent with the urgent memo, which did not cite bank fraud.”
Bank Fraud
Even if the Awans didn’t cause a cybersecurity nightmare in the House the bank fraud portion of this scandal is enough to cause problems for the Democrats…especially since it also shows how far the members went to in order to protect the family.
The Daily Caller wrote that Imran will go to “court on July 3 for a possible plea deal in the bank fraud case.”
Wendy Anderson once worked as the chief of staff for Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY). When Anderson was deputy chief of staff, she found Abid Awan “rummaging through the congresswoman’s work area with new iPods and other equipment strewn around the room, according to a House document and interviews with Hill staff.” She told him to leave and suspected that then-chief of staff Shelley David worked “with Abid on a theft scheme.”
Anderson pushed her boss to fire Abid, but that didn’t happen right away:
But Clarke did not fire Abid until six months after the congresswoman formally acknowledged that $120,000 in equipment was missing, records show — not until after House investigators independently announced a review that would potentially catch financial discrepancies. Even then, Anderson told investigators she believed another top staffer in Clarke’s office was subverting their efforts, a House staffer with knowledge of the investigation said.
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Once Anderson became responsible for the office’s finances, she found that Clarke’s office had for years been ordering abnormal quantities of equipment, much with seemingly dubious business value, she later told House investigators, according to multiple congressional officials with knowledge of the probe who spoke with TheDCNF. After some investigating, Anderson told investigators she believed Davis was working with Abid to steal taxpayer funds, the officials said.
“She thought that Shelley and Omar had too tight of a relationship,” one said. “She’d been going through old email and could see that it basically smacked of Omar was ordering stuff for Shelley and there was no business reason.” Anderson gave House officials copies of those emails, the source said.
“She said to Abid, ‘I want to do an inventory of the office,’ and he couldn’t come up with $120,000 [in equipment], so he said, ‘Oh I don’t know, people lost it,” the source said.
The sum amounted to one-tenth of the office’s entire annual budget.
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Comments
I think it is pretty clear Wray is as corrupt, if not more so than Comey, and is not acting on behalf of the country, but rather to protect the Democratic Party and its implanted sympathizers. He needs to be replaced. Trump needs to give this man a direct order, say deliver to Congress, and when he disobeys, fire him. After confirmation, of course.
I think Trump is playing possum till after the midterms. i think he is letting this corruption irritate the he11 out of people so there is a red wave in Nov. trump will then start firing people and nominating people who can’t be killed off by one Republican Senators. Corker and Flake will be replaced by REAL Senators making the Never-Trump wing just Collins and McCain.
I think if Wray does anything more like this after Nov 2018 he and the rest of them are in for a big surprise that they are not Untouchables.
I hope you’re right.
It makes for an interesting story, but with this plea deal, the story is now one hundred percent dead. We have nothing left but pure speculation. If the Awans “got away with” something shady relating to Congress, or somehow earned a plea deal through offering pertinent information, there is no reason we would ever know.
Maybe in twenty years someone will write a book about it.
It appears more than the Awan’s got away with something shady. Witnesses have reported as much as 10% of some congressional offices went to replace electronic office equipment. The stolen equipment was likely sold.
Prosecutorial malpractice? Is there such a thing?
The Dem party is simply a crime syndicate with voting cards.
It sounds just like Huma Abedin. Letting foxes into the henhouse.
Excuse the cliché, but … Nothing to see here; move along.
Evidence has a chain of custody and doesn’t just disappear, nor does it magically transform. Competent law enforcement would put the responsible people’s nuts in a vise and start squeezing.
While a lobbyist taking a congressman to a fancy restaurant for a fine dinner is OK, having a copy of kiddy porn from the congressmen’s computer is far more effective.
$120,000 worth of electronic equipment is missing? What is that, six iPhones?
The Awans were small time crooks who were handling money transfers for Democrat Congressional Representatives. All of these transactions were routed through the DHC computer server. The Awans were paid exceedingly well for these duties. But, they were small time crooks. They used their positions to begin stealing government equipment. When the possible theft of government equipment was first suspected, somebody decided to make it very difficult for the Democrat members of the House to quash the investigation, by “leaking” Wasserman-Shultz’s laptop to the Capital Police. Then things got interesting.
Awans began leaving for Pakistan. Irwan allegedly decided to scam a bank for several hundred thousand dollars before he left and was stopped and caught. He was either incredibly stupid, which is possible, he was set up, or placed himself in a position where the DHC members would have to protect him in order to protect themselves. Then evidence of the Awan’s activities on DHC servers, laptops and other devices was either scrubbed or the devices themselves disappeared. This was not to protect the Awans, though. All the actions taken, after the Awan network was revealed, is designed to protect the Congress Critters involved. So, Awan will likely get probation, and no charges will be brought against his wife and other family members.
The biggest potential fear here is that the Awans were actually agents for the Pakistan government or one of its intelligence agencies. Whether they were recruited, in place, because they were small time crooks in a highly desirable position, or were agents before their employ by the DHC, their actions in setting up unauthorized back doors into secure networks which contained highly classified information gave them access to information of great value to other nations and groups.
Small-time crooks steal small-time things. Highly-classified information involving U.S. national security and the personal details and activities of leaders in the U.S. government does not count as “small-time” anything.
Plea bargains are used to extort from the innocent and to forgive the guilty; this is how pure force is exercised by corrupt governments.
What “highly classified information” are you two talking about?
I would wager just about everything on the claim that this is all nothing more than a public act to hide what is really occurring. Sessions, et.al., likely has a large amount of evidence on Awan so a pea bargain deal where his crimes are argued down this far simply makes no sense until you place it in the larger picture for context.
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Awan is a little fish so his criminal activity could easily be negotiated down if he were to provide testimony against much bigger fish such as DWS and other Democrat political leaders. (Also, those who are smarter than I tell me that bank fraud are more powerful than other crimes when used for international criminal complaints.) Being that people like DWS are very powerful, the evidence against her may be strong, but not necessarily strong enough to ensure a conviction. More importantly, the court of public opinion will be increased into overdrive with the MSM declaring her and others innocent so an overwhelming amount of evidence will be required for a conviction. What better evidence than a co-conspirator to tell all about what was done, how, and why?
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I suspect this plea bargain occurred a while back but was kept hidden until now. This announcement makes it now appear as if the Trump administration is now ready to start draining the swamp in public. I suspect that we are going to see much occurring this month with efforts escalating for the foreseeable future.
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Another reason why it would appear the swamp draining is now starting is that the public is going to need the time to digest this all before the fall elections. What better way to defeat the Democrats than to showcase one high level Democrat after another as being implicated in a conspiracy to throw elections, commit espionage, and so many other crimes against the country?
Not sure exactly. The Dem congress members had access to lots of classified information in order to do their jobs. Furthermore, it’s more than likely that personal communications containing privat secrets that could be used to blackmail Democrats were obtained by these criminals.
At the end of the day, the first priority for all politicians, Democrat or Republican, is to protect the gravy train. They sure as h-e-double hockey sticks don’t want the hoi polloi funding them to know how deeply embedded both corruption and incompetence are in our federal government. They’re disgusting, the whole lot of them.