Luke Rosiak on May 24, 2017
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz threatened the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police with “consequences” for holding equipment that she says belongs to her in order to build a criminal case against a Pakistani staffer suspected of massive cybersecurity breaches involving funneling sensitive congressional data offsite.
The Florida lawmaker used her position on the committee that sets the police force’s budget to press its chief to relinquish the piece of evidence Thursday, in what could be considered using her authority to attempt to interfere with a criminal investigation.
The Capitol Police and outside agencies are pursuing Imran Awan, who has run technology for the Florida lawmaker since 2005 and was banned from the House network in February on suspicion of data breaches and theft.
“My understanding is the the Capitol Police is not able to confiscate Members’ equipment when the Member is not under investigation,” Wasserman Schultz said in the annual police budget hearing of the House Committee On Appropriations’ Legislative Branch Subcommittee.
“We can’t return the equipment,” Police Chief Matthew R. Verderosa told the Florida Democrat.
“I think you’re violating the rules when you conduct your business that way and you should expect that there will be consequences,” Wasserman Schultz said.
Rep. Wasserman Schultz promises “consequences” for Capitol Police chief investigating her staffer. (Screen shot/House Committee on Appropriations video)
As one of eight members of the Committee on Appropriations’ Legislative Branch subcommittee, Wasserman Schultz is in charge of the budget of the police force that is investigating her staffer and how he managed to extract so much money and information from members.
In a highly unusual exchange, the Florida lawmaker uses a hearing on the Capitol Police’s annual budget to spend three minutes repeatedly trying to extract a promise from the chief that he will return a piece of evidence being used to build an active case.
“If a Member loses equipment and it is found by your staff and identified as that member’s equipment and the member is not associated with any case, it is supposed to be returned. Yes or no?” she said.
Police tell her it is important to “an ongoing investigation,” but presses for its return anyway.
A federal employee with knowledge of the situation and who requested anonymity, told The Daily News Foundation’s Investigative Group that as House authorities closed in on Imran Awan and his brothers, a laptop used by Imran was hidden in an unused crevice of the Rayburn House Office Building. Wasserman Schultz’s office is in Longworth House Office Building, a separate structure.
The laptop was later found by Capitol Police and seized because it was relevant to the criminal investigation, the source said.
The investigation is examining members’ data leaving the network and how Awan managed to get Members to place three relatives and a friend into largely no-show positions on their payrolls, billing $4 million since 2010. (RELATED: Suspects Could Read Every Email Congressmen Sent And Received)
The congresswoman characterizes the evidence as “belonging” to her and argues that therefore it cannot be seized unless Capitol Police tell her that she personally, as opposed to her staffer, is a target of the investigation.
US Capitol Police Chief Matthew R. Verderosa. (Screen shot/House Committee on Appropriations video)
When TheDCNF asked Wasserman Schultz Monday if it could inquire about her strong desire for the laptop, she said “No, you may not.” After TheDCNF asked why she wouldn’t want the Capitol Police to have any evidence they may need to find and punish any hackers of government information, she abruptly turned around in the middle of a stairwell and retreated back to the office from which she had come.
Her spokesman, David Dameron, then emerged to say “We just don’t have any comment.”
Though on the surface Wasserman Schultz would have been a victim of Awan’s scam, she has inexplicably protected him, circumventing the network ban by re-titling him as an “adviser” instead of technology administrator.
Politico described him and his wife, Hina Alvi, as having a “friendly personal relationship” with both Wasserman Schultz and Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York.
That baffled a Democratic IT staffer, who said “I can’t imagine why she’d be that good of friends with a technology provider.”
“Usually if someone does bad stuff, an office is going to distance themselves” rather than incur political fallout for a mere staffer, he added. (RELATED: House IT Aides Fear Suspects Are Blackmailing Members With Their Own Data)
Wasserman Schultz resigned as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 after Wikileaks published thousands of internal emails obtained by an as-yet unidentified hacker.
The last 30 seconds of the exchange can also be seen here.
WATCH:
DWS: I’d like to know how Capitol Police handle equipment that belongs to a member or staffer that’s been lost in the Capitol complex and found or recovered by one of your officers. What happens?
Chief: It’s processed on a PD-81 which is a property record, and depending on the property, depending on how you can legitimately determine ownership, it’s generally turned back over to the owner of a property. If it’s part of an ongoing case, then there are other things that have to occur for that to happen.
DWS: So if a member says there is equipment that has been lost, and you find it it would be returned to the member?
Chief: In a general sense, yes. You have to be able to positively identify the property and be able to establish ownership.
DWS: If ownership is established…
Chief: If it’s part of an ongoing case, then there are additional things that need to be done.
DWS: But if a member owns the equipment, and there is no ongoing case related to that member, then the equipment is supposed to be returned.
Chief: In a general sense, yes.
DWS: No, I mean in a specific sense. If the member loses the equipment, says they lose the equipment, and it is found by the Capitol Police, it is supposed to be returned.
Chief: If ownership has been established, it will be returned. If it’s subject to an ongoing investigation, there are additional things–
DWS: OK, but not an ongoing investigation related to that member. If the equipment belongs to the member, it has been lost, they say it’s been lost and it’s been identified as that member’s, then the Capitol Police are supposed to return it.
Chief: I can’t give a yes or no answer on that, because I know–
DWS: It’s a simple yes or no answer. If a member loses equipment and it is found by your staff and identified as that member’s equipment and the member is not associated with any case, it is supposed to be returned. Yes or no.
Chief: It depends on the circumstances.
DWS: I don’t understand how that is possible. Members’ equipment is members’ equipment. My understanding is the the Capitol Police is not able to confiscate members’ equipment when the member is not under investigation. It is their equipment and it is supposed to be returned.
Chief: I think there are extenuating circumstances in this case, and working through my counsel and the necessary personnel, if that in fact is the case, and with the permission of through the investigation, then we’ll return the equipment. But until that happens we can’t return the equipment.
DWS: I think you’re violating the rules when you conduct your business that way and you should expect that there will be consequences.
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Dirty Debbie Does DC
Look, this woman has no stroke whatsoever with anyone anymore. She is widely disliked in her district. She was driven from her job as DNC chair under a cloud of scandal. She was unable to manage a network within the DNC that could not be hacked. She has always been a bad spokesman for the Dem party, only Pelosi (her ally) consistently beats her in volume and frequency of incoherence and falsehoods. She is now at the center of another cyber-scandal involving Pakistani IT jokers who were stealing from members. Clearly, there is something on that laptop that she does not want disclosed to the Capitol Police. If she has a problem, she can take it up with the Speaker.
Can we now conclude that all Democrats are presumptively guilty of felonies and that all we are doing now is searching for the evidence?
More and more keeps coming out about illegal activities from the Obama administration and these crooked democrats. It appears the “techs” got into everyone’s private emails and is blackmailing people like Wasserman. Today it comes out that Obama was spying on just about everyone he had any interest in. The hits just keep on coming and it’s better than real crime TV. Hillary apparently wasn’t kidding about their losing and everyone will hang.
That’s right, she did say that…the noose is tightening! Much is happening. Can’t wait until President Trump returns and picks his FBI director, and AG Sessions kicks into gear. I am anxiously waiting for the first grand jury.
She is dumb as a rock. Maybe no one has told her that there is a new sheriff in town and this new one won’t protect her and her fellow law breakers. They all need to be behind bars if they worked for the obama administration as he filled it with the muslim brotherhood (a terrorist organization) and all those who were willing to break our laws and our Constitution.
If I were this Police Chief, I would open a case against this dipsh*t for obstruction of justice and impeding if not obstructing an ongoing investigation. He has the authority to arrest her on these charges. DWS is one corrupt lying criminal. I’m sure there are any number of things he could arrest her for.
Congress needs to investigate her!
Why does illegal activity seem to always be present in this thug’s life. Reminds me of “Pig Pen”.
Nasty skank!
The investigation of Hillary Clinton exposed a lot of her crimes. The standard for indictment was the probability for her ability to prove that she was not an enemy agent. (Can it be proven that it was done on purpose) Therefore the investigation was ended and the narrative was that she was cleared of all charges. This really smells rotten and is underestimated as a factor in getting Trump elected. This is the motive behind keeping the investigation of the Trump team alive. While the talk is of the extremely improbable Russian collusion the talk is not about the rot in the Democrat party and the Washington insiders as well as the career civil servants. Hillary was not indited nor were any of her staff therefore there was no pardon and she was going to be the president anyway so the smoke would clear completely. Then, Holy Smoke! here come the swamp draining team. “They hate us and they will investigate further.” All Americans know that there is a lot more to the story including the Democrats”. These closed investigations all need to be reopened. The strategy of the left now is keep the reformers on the Trump up to their asses in alligators so they can’t drain the swamp. The Russian investigation will drag on until the possibility of reopening the Hillary scandals is diminished enough and they can show some obscure detail that they might be able to use to sort of justify the massive expense of time and resources into the Russian probe.
In the main-time the enemies of Western Democracy are rubbing their hands in glee and looking for an opening to strike while we are made vulnerable by the Washington distractions. It is also an opportune time for hostile agents to find traitors in Washington to work for them by blackmail, or entrapment, or with people who see the law closing in and need an alternative.
My hope is that some patriotic civil servants come forward with the truth before we are hurt anymore.
What else can you expect from Wasserman (the name of the test for syphilis) Schultz, another egotistical leftist snob? Oh, by the way, she is ugly too.
Perhaps she should cool her jets, too indignant to be innocent. Her fingerprints undoubtedly are all over the Pakistani activities, along with Meeks (and probably many other Dems). Not a single one of them have even semi-clean hands – filthy sewer/swamp rats need to be exterminated.
Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz is a big mouth cow throwing her libtard democrappic weight around. She needs a swift kick in her big fat ass right into the nearest federal prison.
The Democrat Crime Syndicate is beginning to look like the biggest crime cabal in the United States
I wouldn’t trust Debbie Washerklutz Schitz as far as I can spit. She is concerned that something is on that laptop which will incriminate her, other Dumbasscraps, or the DNC. I have no doubt that there is. The police need to view her concern and threats as a red flag to go over that laptop with a fine toothed comb, including accessing any password protected areas…
Follow the money. The brothers have received $4 million and counting. Their mother or mother in law has returned to Pakistan. Is Wassman-Shultz involved in the blackmailing and where did the money go?
She is waaay too upset about this laptop. Her question is about confiscation. The laptop was found, not confiscated. I believe ol’ Sally might know about this guy leaking info. And to employ the Pakistani (surely muslim, and a plant) AND some of his relatives and a ‘friend’ is ridiculous… but aren’t all liberals? She is afraid she is going to get caught… AGAIN! When they put her in her cell, I guess everybody will be singing ‘Sally can’t dance no more’.
The whole kit and kabuttal (DNC) from Podesta on down should be investigated for voter fraud, dealing with the Russians, and in general trying to buy the presidency, not to speak of feeding HRC the questions. It seems to me that is a crime, if it isn’t it should be.
This don’t sound to good for her or her party. She needs to be taken down a few pegs and maybe turned out to a pasture.
She needs to be taken down a few pegs and maybe turned out to a pasture with the rest of the cows. She is like Hillary does not know the truth and is unable to recognize the truth. The truth and the DNC cannot exist in the same environment.