Politics

Wasserman Schultz Aide Who Fled US Strikes A Deal To Return, Facing Charges

No featured image available

A laptop that Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has frantically fought to keep prosecutors from examining, alongside a letter to the U.S. Attorney, may have been intentionally planted for police to find– by her since-indicted staffer, Imran Awan.

The laptop had the username “RepDWS,” even though the Florida Democrat and former Democratic National Committee chairman previously said it was Imran’s computer and that she had never even seen it, according to a Capitol Police report reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group. There was also a note that said “Attorney-Client Privilege.”

U.S. Capitol Police found the laptop after midnight April 6, 2017, in a tiny room that formerly served as a phone booth in the Rayburn House Office Building.

Alongside the laptop was a Pakistani ID card, copies of Imran’s drivers license and congressional ID badge, and letters to the U.S. attorney.

Imran was banned Feb. 2, 2017, from the congressional computer network because he is a suspect in a cybersecurity investigation, but he still had access to House facilities because Wasserman Schultz continued to employ him.

The laptop was found on the second floor of the Rayburn building– a place Imran would have had no reason to go because Wasserman Schultz’s office is in the Longworth building and the other members who employed him had fired him.

Wasserman Schultz used a televised May 18, 2017 congressional hearing on the Capitol Police’s budget to threaten “consequences” if Chief Matthew Verderosa did not give her the laptop, saying “if a member loses equipment,” it should be given back.

Verderosa responded that the laptop couldn’t be returned because it was tied to a criminal suspect. Wasserman Schultz reiterated that, while Imran was a suspect, the computer should be returned because it is “a member’s … if the member is not under investigation.”

The Florida Democrat changed her story two months later, claiming it was Imran’s laptop — bought with taxpayer funds from her office — and she had never seen it. She only sought to protect Imran’s rights, she said.

The circumstances of the laptop’s appearance suggest that she was trying to keep them from reviewing a laptop that Imran himself may have wanted them to find. The former phone booth room is small and there was no obvious reason to enter it.

Leaving important items there accidentally would seem extremely unlikely, according to Rep. Louis Gohmert, a Texas Republican, former prosecutor, and member of the House Judiciary Committee.

“Imran Awan is a calculating person who made great efforts to cover his tracks, both electronically and physically,” Gohmert told TheDCNF. “Placing that laptop with his personal documents, which may well incriminate him, those he worked for, or both, in the dead of night in a House office building, was a deliberate act by a cunning suspect, and it needs to be investigated.”

Even though the laptop was allegedly used only by an IT aide who worked for numerous members, Wasserman Schultz has hired an outside counsel, William Pittard, to argue that the laptop not be examined. Pittard argued that the speech and debate clause — which only protects a member’s information directly related to legislative duties — should prevent prosecutors from examining the laptop’s contents, TheDCNF has learned. Pittard did not respond to TheDCNF’s requests for comment.

Pittard, a partner with KaiserDillon, is the former acting general counsel of the House. Hiring an outside counsel to argue the speech and debate clause on behalf of Wasserman Schultz is highly unusual, because the general counsel of the House offers opinions on speech and debate issues for free.

The most recent notable example of a member hiring an outside attorney to argue a more aggressive interpretation is former Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson, who was convicted Aug. 4, 2009 of “using his office to try to enrich himself and relatives through a web of bribes and payoffs involving business ventures in Africa.” Investigators found $100,000 in cold cash in his freezer.

The collection of documents found in Rayburn tie the laptop to Imran and ensured that police would keep the computer. The reporting officer wrote that when he saw Imran’s name, he recalled guarding an interrogation of Imran a few months earlier. The “attorney client privilege” notation also prevented police from immediately reviewing some of the papers.

Nonetheless, the officer opened the MacBook and found that its logon screen did not have Imran’s username, but rather “RepDWS.”

A police report reviewed by TheDCNF said:

On 4/6/2017 at 0021 hours, with the building closed to the public, AOC informed USCP Rayburn offices of an unattended bag in the phone booth on the 2nd floor. The officer received the open-contents visible bag and prepared a found property report. While reviewing the inventory of the bag contents, the officer found

#1 a Pakistani ID card with the name Mohommed Ashraf Awan
#2 a copy – not original – of a drivers license with name Imran Awan
#3 a copy (front and back) of his congressional ID
#4 an Apple laptop with the homescreen initials ‘RepDWS’
#5 composition notebooks with notes handwritten saying ‘attorney client privilege’ and possibly discussing case details below
#6 loose letters addressed to US Attorney of DC discussing the apparent owner of the bag being investigated.

Approximately 3-4 months ago officer was requested by SAA as police presence of 4 individuals being interviewed, including the bag owner. It is unknown to the officer whether he is still employed.

Follow Luke on Twitter. Send tips to [email protected]. PGP key.