Blackmail on Capitol Hill: “I Don’t Know What They Have, but They Have Something on Someone”

One of the many things that the recent presidential election will be remembered for will be computer and Internet related scandals. There’s the obvious case of Mrs. Clinton’s bizarre use of an unsecured email server to conduct confidential, and in some cases classified government business as Secretary of State. The revelations from WikiLeaks was another prominent feature. So was the alleged interception of telephone conversations by Mr. Obama.

One scandal that has only recently been revived involves the penetration of computer systems used by Democratic Congressmen by IT specialists who were in their employ.

First, a bit of review:

Congressional technology aides are baffled that data-theft allegations against four former House IT workers — who were banned from the congressional network — have largely been ignored, and they fear the integrity of sensitive high-level information.

Imran Awan and three relatives were colleagues until police banned them from computer networks at the House of Representatives after suspicion the brothers accessed congressional computers without permission.

Where the story gets interesting is the claim by current IT specialists working in Congress that these Democratic Congressmen whose systems were compromised are displaying an odd loyalty to the these former employees who hacked their systems.

Five Capitol Hill technology aides told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group that members of Congress have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty towards the suspects who police say victimized them. The baffled aides wonder if the suspects are blackmailing representatives based on the contents of their emails and files, to which they had full access.

“I don’t know what they have, but they have something on someone. It’s been months at this point” with no arrests, said Pat Sowers, who has managed IT for several House offices for 12 years. “Something is rotten in Denmark.”

Blackmail certainly sounds possible. If one is of a more conspiratorial bent, one would say it’s probable. Recall what the original bunch of IT workers are accused of doing.

Politico reported the Awan crew is “accused of stealing equipment from members’ offices without their knowledge and committing serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network.”

So we can surmise that this “Awan crew” knows something, in fact a lot of things, that if exposed to the light of day might send some Congressmen to prison. Hence, no prosecutions.

A manager at a tech-services company that works with Democratic House offices said … “There’s no question about it: If I was accused of a tenth of what these guys are accused of, they’d take me out in handcuffs that same day, and I’d never work again.”

And this crew got paid very well for their services:

Awan began working for Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida in 2005, and his wife, his brother’s wife, and two of his brothers all appeared on the payrolls of various House Democrats soon after, payroll records show. They have collected $4 million since 2010.

So why are these people still working for the government?

Wasserman Schultz, the victim of a disastrous hack while she was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, renamed Awan an “advisor” to circumvent the Capitol Police’s computer network ban on the brothers. Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge’s office told Politico a month after the ban that she had not fired Imran either.

After Wasserman Schultz and Fudge, as well as New York Democratic Reps. Gregory Meeks and Yvette Clarke and the House Democratic Caucus office, retained the Awans, the incumbents or their staffs encouraged newly-elected members to place the family on their payrolls.

The Democrats are clearly protecting this bunch for some reason, while trying to skate fast over thin ice.

Another Democratic IT contractor said members “are saying don’t say anything, this will all blow over if we all don’t say anything.” The Awans “had [members] in their pocket,” and “there are a lot of members who could go down over this.”

It’s called blackmail. And when top government officials allow themselves to be blackmailed by such a group as this, you know there is some highly damning evidence of wrongdoing that is being held over the heads of these Congressmen.

If Awan and his crew go down, it is reasonable to assume they are going to take a bunch of Democratic Congressmen with them.

Source: Daily Caller

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