Judicial Watch: Federal Court Hearing on Awan Brothers, Congressional Democrat IT Scandal

Former Democrat IT staffer Imran Awan allegedly leaked secret data from House offices to a secret server and Dropbox.com

Judicial Watch has announced that a federal court ordered a hearing for Friday, December 13, 2019, on the Congressional Democrat IT (information technology) scandal involving the Awan brothers.

The hearing was ordered in accordance with a November 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, which was filed after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) failed to respond adequately to two separate FOIA requests.

In August 2019, the DOJ told the court that it would begin producing records by November 5, 2019. After producing no records, on November 13, 2019 the agency told Judicial Watch that it was having “technical difficulties,” and in a recent email claimed that “difficulties with the production remain.”

In a joint status report filed on December 5, 2019, Judicial Watch reported to the court that the DOJ claimed in a phone call that it was now unable to produce any records to either of the FOIA requests “because the agency was waiting for some unspecified action by Judge [Tanya S.] Chutkan in some other matter so as to avoid having to produce records in this case.” In that same report the DOJ told the court that Judge Chutkan is “presiding over a related sealed criminal matter” that prohibits the government from releasing the requested FOIA information. [Emphasis added]

Imran Awan and his family were banned from the House computer network in February 2017 after the House’s top law enforcement officer wrote that Imran is “an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems,” and that a server containing evidence had gone “missing.” The inspector general said server logs showed “unauthorized access” and procurement records were falsified.

Imran Awan was Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s (D-FL) top information technology aide.

Full press release here