News 

The Feds Just Arrested Ex-DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s IT Guy as He Tried to Flee Country

usatrustnews

A longtime IT staffer, who has served more than 25 Democratic members of the House of Representatives, has been arrested while attempting to flee the country.

According to reports, Imran Awan, a Pakistani-born immigrant, is under investigationfor “wide-ranging equipment and data theft.”

Awan remained in the employment of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) when, in February, he was barred from access to the House IT network.

Politico reported at the time:

Multiple relatives of Imran Awan, including his wife Hina Alvi, Abid Awan and Jamal Awan — all House staffers until recently — are also being investigated in connection to the alleged procurement scam, according to a senior House official close to the investigation.

Alvi has worked for more than a dozen House Democrats and the House Democratic Caucus since 2007. At least one member, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), is still employing her.

“My office is in the process of gathering information to make a determination in the near future about the employment of Ms. Alvi with our office,” Meeks said Monday in a statement to POLITICO.

Now six months into the investigation, quite a bit more information has come to light.

Smashed hard drives were found at Awan’s residence, according to a bombshell report just this week from The Daily Caller. Awan is also now under FBI investigation, according to an unnamed source:

FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s information technology (IT) administrator, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation.

Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back, an individual whom FBI investigators interviewed in the case told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

An additional source in Congress with direct knowledge of the case, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, confirmed that the FBI has joined what Politico previously described as a Capitol Police criminal probe into “serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network” by Imran and three of his relatives, who had access to the emails and files of the more than two dozen House Democrats who employed them on a part-time basis.

Capitol Police have also seized computer equipment tied to the Florida lawmaker.

The most recent twist in the story, however, occurred on Monday when Awan was arrested at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. — apparently attempting to flee the country, according to Fox News’s Chad Pergram:

 

 

According to The Hill, despite being fired by a number of other House Democrats and the fact that he has been barred from access to the House IT system since February, Awan is still on Wasserman Schultz’s payroll — but in an advisory capacity.