The sound of crickets from U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette’s camp is deafening as she refuses to explain her role in hiring and keeping a Pakistani national on Democratic committee payrolls, including her own, from 2009 through 2016 without so much as a background check.
Imran Awan and his family are the target of federal investigations that reportedly involve an allegedly fraudulent loan from the Congressional Federal Credit Union. Also, feds have been investigating possible data breaches while Awan was employed by the Democrats as an IT specialist.
Some reports say Awan and his family collected $4 million from Democrats while rarely showing up for work. The New York Times says the family was only responsible for “run of the mill” duties like setting up phones and computers, fixing printers, and, uhm, resetting passwords.
The Times, by the way, chalks the whole scandal up to Islamaphobia and simply brushes away critical questions about missing computers and possible links to the DNC breach when U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was in charge.
It turns out they were accessing members’ computers without their knowledge, transferring files to remote servers, and stealing computer equipment — including hard drives that Awan & Co. smashed to bits of bytes before making tracks.
The media are focusing on Schultz’s connection with Awan because she didn’t fire him until after the feds arrested him minutes before Awan boarded a plane for home.
What interests us is this review of congressional payrolls by the Daily Caller that shows DeGette and Schultz were among the highest paying out of the 18 Democrats who had Awan on their committee payrolls.
Schultz paid out more than $154,000 to Awan, the second highest contribution to his wallet, while DeGette paid nearly $133,000, the fourth highest of all 18 members.
Combined with other family members of Awan who he also got onto these committee payrolls, the Pakistanis were paid a total of $4 million.
It’s time for DeGette to start talking.