The family of four Pakistani-Americans had unusual access to Congressional computers, for years, in the innermost sanctums of the US Capitol and in the offices of dozens of national lawmakers.
Then a standard requisition form linked to the IT workers appeared to show missing money. It sparked a Capitol Police probe that led to accusations of stolen equipment and breached computer networks. Conservative pols and media outlets sounded the alarm — state secrets and our very safety from Islamic terrorism was at risk.
Outrage grew as some liberal Congress members called the probe a Muslim witch hunt. One prominent Democrat defiantly continued to employ a suspect.
Finally, to the relief of many, the FBI entered the picture. And last week, after months of wild speculation, an arrest was announced.
The feds had gotten their man — but it wasn’t for terrorism, espionage or treason. It was for a single count of bank fraud involving lying on a home-equity loan application.
The immense gulf between the fears and the facts, the allegations and the actual criminal charges, has only served to deepen the mystery surrounding the Awan family. Several Republicans are demanding hearings to determine just how serious the illegal activity is in the “House IT Scandal.”
The arrest of 37-year-old Imran Awan on July 24 came as he was leaving the country on a flight to Qatar en route to Pakistan, where he had wired the proceeds of the $165,000 loan, adding another element of intrigue to the case.
“Congress needs answers regarding the scope of Awan’s misconduct and the access he had to the House network,” said Rep. Ron De Santis (R-Florida), a member of the Government Oversight Committee.
DeSantis last week asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions for clarification on what action the government was taking and called the transfer of money to Pakistan “particularly alarming as Pakistan is home to numerous terrorist organizations.”
Texas Republican Louis Gohmert questioned the background checks done on the IT workers, suggesting their access to even mundane details could prove valuable to some.
“There are foreign governments and even multinational corporations who would pay a lot of money to get access just to emails and calendars of members of Congress on committees controlling issues critical to them,” Gohmert said.
Meanwhile, a watchdog group is asking for an ethics probe into Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Florida Democrat who continued to employ Awan during a six-month investigation. She fired him only after his arrest and has defended her decision to keep him on the House payroll.
“Over time, the investigation raised troubling concerns for me about fair treatment, due process, and potential ethnic and religious profiling,” Wasserman Schultz said last week.
Awan’s lawyer said “anti-Muslim” bigotry is at play in the probe.
“The real story here is what the hell is going on,” Christopher Gowen told The Post. “There’s something about it that just seems fundamentally wrong and disturbing. And what it’s resulted in is that these peoples’ lives are ruined.”
Gowen said the work Awan and the others did amounted to typical geek squad duties like setting up computers and printers and buying equipment for members of the House. Awan did not have a security clearance, he said, and had no access to “anything remotely confidential.”
The trouble for the squad seemed to stem from a House request for computer equipment that appeared to show $120,000 unaccounted for spending.
“We know that there’s this procurement report where the numbers didn’t add up, but they actually do,” he said.
Gowen said someone — he doesn’t know who — flagged the report and sparked an investigation.
The office of the House Sergeant at Arms, which reviews security issues for representatives, got involved and so did the US Capitol Police.
In February, the Politico web site, citing multiple sources, reported that five House staffers had been accused of “stealing equipment from members’ offices without their knowledge and committing serious, potentially illegal, violations on the house IT network.”
The staffers were Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, along with Awan’s brothers. Abid and Jamal, and a friend, Rao Abbas.
All were denied access to the House computer network after the probe began.
The feds seized computers from Awan’s home. Reports said probers found smashed hard drives, something Awan’s lawyer denied.
Awan, 37, came to the US as a teenager and became a citizen in 2004, the same year he started working for Congress. He later arranged jobs for the others, who all floated among the DC offices of various U.S. representatives, including four from New York.
Some of these lawmakers were members of the sensitive House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees.
The work could be lucrative, with salaries topping $100,000 in some years.
Awan worked for Queens Dem Gregory Meeks earlier in his career and more recently for Brooklyn Dems Yvette Clarke and Hakeem Jeffries.
Abid Awan, 33, worked in Clarke’s office from 2013 to 2016.
Abbas, 37, worked briefly for Rep. Joseph Crowley, the Queens Democratic Party chairman.
Alvi also worked for Clarke and worked for Meeks for many years. She was still employed at his office when news of the scandal broke.
Meeks said that he had seen no evidence of wrongdoing by Alvi or her husband and worried that their religion could make them false targets.
“They had provided great service for me. And there were certain times in which they had permission by me, if it was Hina or someone else, to access some of my data,” Meeks told Politico.
But Meeks canned Alvi in late February, saying the investigation had become a distraction in his office.
A few days later, she pulled her children out of the Fairfax County public schools without notice, packed up her household belongings and departed for Pakistan, according to an affidavit filed in connection with Awan’s arrest.
FBI agents and US Capitol Police officers stopped Alvi at Dulles airport on March 5, 2017, where they found she had bags and boxes filled with “household goods, clothing and food items” and was carrying $12,400 in cash, the affidavit says.
She was allowed to continue the trip with her three daughters and has not returned to the US.
Awan was able to hang onto a House job after Wasserman Schultz created a position for him. Her spokesman said the job involved consulting on a variety of office needs, including the office website and printers.
Wasserman Schultz told South Florida’s Sun Sentinel newspaper last week that she understood that the case against Awan and his family involved “procurement violations and data transfer violations.”
She said data had been sent “outside the secure network, which I think amounted to use of apps that the House didn’t find compliant with our security requirements.”
She cited the data-sharing and storage service Dropbox as one of those apps and said she believed other IT workers did the same thing but were not being investigated.
Wasserman Schultz told the newspaper that Awan applied to take an unpaid leave of absence from his job, and did have a return date. His lawyer said he had told the feds that Awan was going to return to Pakistan to see his family.
Imran and his wife owned a home in Virginia and two other properties they rented out.
In December 2016, Alvi applied for a $165,000 home equity loan on one of those rental properties, an Alexandria, Va. home she purchased in 2014 for $187,500, court papers show.
She wrote on the application to the Congressional Federal Credit Union that the money was for “cash out home improvement” and she contended it was her primary residence, according to the FBI affidavit filed in the case.
The credit union normally doesn’t give out loans for rental properties.
While Alvi’s named appeared on the document, it identified the sex of the applicant as male and gave Awan’s phone number and email address.
The loan closed on Jan. 12, 2017, and six days later, Alvi sent a request to wire $283,000, including the cash from the loan, from the credit union to two people in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
When a credit union rep called to speak to Alvi about the transfer request, the man who answered the phone pretended to be Alvi, the affidavit says.
“The male speaking to the representative said that the purpose of the wire was ‘funeral arrangements,’” the affidavit says.
When told that might not be legitimate, the man said he would “look online for an acceptable reason for the wire,” according to the affidavit.
After a “ long pause,” he said the he needed the money sent in order to buy property and the bank rep approved.
The FBI maintains that Awan and Alvi “engaged in a scheme to defraud” the credit union by misrepresenting the use of the home as a primary residence and not rental property.
Awan has pleaded not guilty. He had to surrender his passport and was placed in a “high intensity supervision program” that required him to wear a GPS monitor. He is living with one of his brothers in Virginia.
His lawyer said the money the family wired to Pakistan was used for a dispute over property owned by his late father. He said Awan was not fleeing the country and “100 percent” intended to return to the US after visiting his family.
His family life was already in turmoil.
Awan and his brothers became embroiled in a dispute with their stepmother in January as their father was dying. Samina Gilani called the police on Jan. 5, 2017, saying her stepsons would not allow her to see her sick husband.
She contended in court papers filed as part of a subsequent fight over her husband’s life insurance that a stepson — identified as Shahid Imran Awan — threatened her because she called the police, wiretapped her phones and said “he had the power to kidnap my family members back in Pakistan.”
“Worth mentioning here that Mr. Shahid Imran Awan introduces himself (as) someone from US congress or someone from Federal Agencies,” she contended.
Awan is due in federal court on Aug. 21 for a preliminary hearing on the fraud charge. A spokesman for the US Attorney’s office in Washington, DC would not comment about the House computer probe and whether it was ongoing.
That has not stopped the demand for answers.
Gohmert, for one, says he wants the situation aired openly give the “potential for mayhem in our private Congressional system.”
“I have been quietly advised that authorities really are looking into it, but that is conveyed in a whisper at the back of the room,” the lawmaker said. “I have contended for months our elected House leaders should be giving us regular open updates on the extent of potential exposure and just how big this problem is.”