[Daily Caller] A Pakistani family under criminal investigation by the U.S. Capitol Police for abusing their access to the House of Representatives information technology (IT) system may have engaged in myriad other questionable schemes besides allegedly placing "ghost employees" on the congressional payroll.
Imran Awan, his wife Hina, and brothers Abid and Jamal collectively netted more than $4 million in salary as IT administrators for House Democrats between 2009 and 2017. Yet the absence of signs of wealth displayed among them raise questions such as was the money sent overseas or did something other than paychecks motivate their actions?
Capitol Police revoked the Awans’ access to the congressional IT system in February 2017 after a major data breach was detected. Their access had allowed them to read emails and files of dozens of members, including many serving on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
House Democrats have been nonchalant about the allegations, with some saying it was just a misunderstanding or the Capitol Police framed the Awans due to Islamophobia. Both lengthy and disgusting.
It is perhaps the key piece of forensic evidence in Russia’s suspected efforts to sway the November presidential election, but federal investigators have yet to get their hands on the hacked computer server that handled email from the Democratic National Committee.
Indeed, the only cybersecurity specialists who have taken a look at the server are from CrowdStrike, the Irvine, California-based private cybersecurity company that the DNC hired to investigate the hack — but which has come under fire itself for its work.
Some critics say CrowdStrike’s evidence for blaming Russia for the hack is thin. Members of Congress say they still believe Russia was responsible but wonder why the DNC has never allowed federal investigators to get a look at the key piece of evidence: the server. Either way, a key “witness” in the political scandal consuming the Trump administration remains beyond the reach of investigators.
“I want to find out from the company [that] did the forensics what their full findings were,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is leading the Judiciary Committee’s inquiry, told The Washington Times.
Scrutinizing the DNC server hack and CrowdStrike’s analysis has not factored heavily in multiple probes exploring the Russia issue. But behind the scenes, discussions are growing louder, congressional sources say.
#5
Members of Congress say they still believe Russia was responsible but wonder why the DNC has never allowed federal investigators to get a look at the key piece of evidence:
#7
At what point does suspicion focus on the Democrat congress critters who hired the Awans? Has it not occurred to anybody that they might be complicit?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/06/2017 12:15 Comments ||
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#8
At what point does suspicion focus on the Democrat congress critters who hired the Awans? Has it not occurred to anybody that they might be complicit?
Hackers i.e., (Alwans) 'cloaking' as Russians, hired to sort out leaks within the DNC? A man some refer to as Soetoro did nothing:
“The Obama administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?”
No profit in destroying a very effective cover, or disclosing and thus terminating your own projects.
#10
The Awans first started performing 'IT services' for a Muslim Member of Congress, then moved on to work in other offices.
It's likely that the Congresscritters did this partly because the Awans were already emplaced and it's less work to simply ride on to an existing contract, and partly because it would curry political favor with the Muslim-American community for the Democrats.
Also, factor in that each Congressional office is essentially independent; they do their own hiring of staff (who are not Civil Service) and do not work from GSA or Federal funding. So it's probable that the Congresscritters don't want to answer pointed questions about their financial operations, or have to explain to their constituents at home why they signed on such a dodgy bunch.
The money likely ended up in Pakistan. The question is whether some of that ended up with certain Pakistan-backed groups, or some among certain groups in the U.S., possibly as influence-buying and outright political contributions.
#11
Thanks that excellent synopsis Pappy. This is one of those cases where both malice and stupidity have come in to play. Here, the stoopid belongs to the Dems of course and the malice to the Awans. What remains is peeling back the layers of malice employed them.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
07/06/2017 16:30 Comments ||
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#12
Here, the stoopid belongs to the Dems of course
Stupidity, indolence, group-think, and political opportunism, Rex.
[TheHill] Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) ripped into Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson in a speech Saturday, saying Carson "doesn’t care about people in public housing." Waters has visited Cuba a number of times, praised Fidel Castro, and demanded an end to the U.S. trade embargo. In 1998 Waters wrote a letter to Castro citing the 1960s and 1970s as "a sad and shameful chapter of our history," and thanked Castro for providing help to those who needed to "flee political persecution." In 1998, Waters wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro asking him not to extradite African-American activist Assata Shakur. After a woman drowned during an attempted escape from Cuba to the U.S. in 1999, leaving a six-year-old son, Elian Gonzales, who survived and requested asylum in the U.S., Waters called on President Bill Clinton to return him at once to Cuba.
"[Carson] knows nothing about the mission of HUD," Waters said in a speech at the Essence Festival in New Orleans. "He doesn’t care about people in public housing. He believes that if you are poor, it is your own fault. And he doesn’t know the difference between an immigrant and a slave."
Waters was referring to Carson’s remarks at a March event for HUD employees in which he referred to slaves brought to America as "immigrants."
"That’s what America is about. A land of dreams and opportunity," Carson had said. "There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less."
Carson also said in May that poverty was "a state of mind."
"You take somebody that has the right mindset, you take everything from them and put them on the street and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there," he said in a SiriusXM radio interview in May. "And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom."
Waters also warned Carson that she would be tough on him when he testifies before the House Financial Services Committee, of which she is the ranking member.
"[If he] thinks that I am going to give him a pass, I am going to take his ass apart," Waters said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/06/2017 7:04 Comments ||
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#2
"In 1998 Waters wrote a letter to Castro citing the 1960s and 1970s as "a sad and shameful chapter of our history,"
Maybe Mad Maxine would be willing to move to this communist paradise (sarc). Getting her out of Kalifornia would be good for everyone. BTW, no one has suggested a psychiatric test for her to determine whether she is fit to serve. Maybe it is just apparent to everyone that she is not "fit" and does not "serve."
#10
One of Carson's problems is he doesn't speak in sound bites like a politician so most of what he says can easily be cherry-picked to twist what he says. Someone should teach a course on that sort of stuff for newbies to Politics.
#11
Waters also warned Carson that she would be tough on him when he testifies before the House Financial Services Committee, of which she is the ranking member.
"[If he] thinks that I am going to give him a pass, I am going to take his ass apart," Waters said.
Exhibit #2,473 of everything that is wrong with the mindset of the typical Congress critter.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/06/2017 11:51 Comments ||
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#13
Tucker Carlson last might eviscerated her:
"onsider where she lives," Carlson said of Waters," in a "6,000 square foot, $4.3 million mansion in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles."
"How did she afford a place like that after having spent the last 40 years working in government?" Carlson asked. "We hate to speculate."
Congress has the second highest percentage of African-American residents in the state of California," Carlson said. "Now the neighborhood where Waters actually lives is just six percent black, or as she might put it herself if she didn't live there, ‘it's segregated, like 1950s level segregated.'"
#17
Looks like she has her own plantation now and has to protect her district from the influence of smarter black Americans. Aka black on black verbal violance.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.