DOJ won't prosecute Pakistani Dem aide for espionage

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. (Screenshot)

Amid allegations of espionage, massive data breaches of Congress members' emails and theft of congressional equipment, a former IT aide to Democratic lawmakers struck a plea deal confined to bank-fraud charges.

Imran Awan, who has been fiercely defended by former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, pleaded guilty Tuesday to bank fraud before U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Washington.

Wasserman Schultz, Awan's former boss, has charged the investigation was motivated by "Islamophobia," despite evidence presented by a House inspector general appointed by Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi suggesting Awan and his co-workers were surreptitiously siphoning information from Democratic lawmakers' computers, including members of House intelligence committees.

Imran Awan

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In the deal, Justice Department prosecutors, nevertheless, said they "uncovered no evidence" that Awan "violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems," FoxNews.com reported.

The conclusion comes as Republican lawmakers continue to investigate accusations that political bias influenced the Justice Department's and the FBI's handling of the probes of Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information and Russian influence on the 2016 election.

The prosecution Tuesday also dropped fraud charges against Awan's wife, Hina Alvi.

Trump has shown interest in the case, tweeting about "the Pakistani mystery man" and asking last year, "Whatever happened to this Pakistani guy who worked with the DNC?"

Imran Awan, and his brothers Abid and Jamal, allegedly ran a ghost employee scheme along with their wives that took in nearly $6 million over the years. After wiring approximately $300,000 to his native Pakistan in July 2017, Imran Awan was arrested by the FBI at Dulles International Airport and indicted on four counts of bank fraud after prosecutors said the suspects tried to flee the country. He was carrying $12,000 in cash at the time of his arrest.

The Justice Department said it "found no evidence that [Imran] illegally removed House data from the House network or from House Members' offices, stole the House Democratic Caucus Server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed or transferred government information."

However, that statement is at odds with the findings of a House inspector general, the sergeant-at-arms and the statements of multiple Democratic aides, reported the Daily Caller's Luke Rosiak, who has closely followed the case from the beginning.

He noted that in September 2016, the House Office of Inspector General gave House leaders a presentation alleging Hina, 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.

The report said evidence "suggests steps are being taken to conceal their activity" and their behavior mirrored a "classic method for insiders to exfiltrate data from an organization."

The server logs show, according to the IG, Awan family members made "unauthorized access" to congressional servers in violation of House rules by logging in to the servers of members for whom they did not work.

The IG found that the computer server for the House Democratic Caucus, chaired at the time by then-Rep. Xavier Becerra of California went "missing" soon after it was designated as evidence in the case.

The House IG's letter said: "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."

The plea deal Tuesday said prosecutors conducted a "thorough investigation of those allegations," interviewing 40 witnesses, taking custody of the House Democratic Caucus server and other devices, reviewing electronic communications between House employees and interviewing Awan several times.

Last month, Frank Miniter, who has investigated the case for an upcoming book, "Spies in Congress," wrote in a column for FoxNews.com that his sources told him the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force had been looking into the matter since well before Awan and his family members were expelled from the House computer network in February 2017.

Investigators were particularly interested in whether or not anyone else in the congressional offices was involved in alleged improper activity, including Wasserman Schultz and Becerra, who is now California attorney general.

Wasserman Schultz: 'Islamophobia' sparked probe

In June, the Daily Caller News Foundation, citing a House employee, reported that when the House IG found Awan made "unauthorized access" to the House servers, Wasserman Schultz screamed at House officials, demanding they kill the probe.

The congresswoman became "frantic, not normal," "making the rounds" to House officials in an attempt to kill the investigation, the House employee said.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.

Wasserman Schultz, the source said, cornered House Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko and called him a "f----- Islamophobe," saying "you will not so much as take away their parking spots."

The Florida congresswoman has claimed it was "Islamophobia" that sparked the investigations.

Awan apparently was close to Wasserman Schultz, telling people she chose the name for his daughter, Leza, a Jewish name, the Daily Caller reported. The daughter regularly rode a horse that Awan kept at a boarding facility.

WND reported in January that the IT aides sometimes even logged in as congressmen to cover their tracks. Authorities said there is evidence the members' data may have been aggregated onto one server, which then was physically stolen.

In May, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported Awan's father transferred a USB drive to a Pakistani senator and former head of a Pakistani intelligence agency, according to the father's former business partner.

In April, congressional documents revealed there were no background checks conducted on the Pakistan-born IT aides.

No classified information?

Awan remained on the payroll of Wasserman Schultz – who served as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee when its IT network was hacked in 2016 – until he was arrested last July.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa

The Florida congresswoman insists Awan didn't have access to any classified information.

But, in an interview with WND in October, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, rebutted the former DNC chair's claims, arguing that Democratic members of Congress who serve on intelligence committees would, by the nature of their work, correspond about sensitive information.

"The argument is that there was no classified information that was compromised or breached – that's what they said about Hillary Clinton at first," he said. "Some of them – like Andre Carson served on the Select Committee on Intelligence – would have access to the highest level of classified information that we have in the United States Congress."

King said the Democrats essentially surrendered highly classified material to anti-American Pakistani workers who "don't have allegiance to the United States."

"The GOP wants to put the government back on its rails again and operating efficiently. Democrats want to pull it down," he said. "When we hire people to work in our office, I want to make sure I am looking them in the eye. I want to know who's doing what work and what they're going to get paid for that. That's our jobs to do that.

"Instead, they are funneling taxpayer dollars to people who, at a minimum, are not natural-born American citizens. If they're sending money to Pakistan and absconding to Pakistan, they don't have allegiance to the United States, either."

The Awans could be just "a crooked family that found a way to scam the House of Representatives and skim wages out," he said.

But the worst-case scenario, King argued, is the Pakistani family funneled information or money "into the hands of the Taliban or ISIS."