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<\/a>Congressional IT workers Abid and Jamal Awan \/ family photos provided to TheDCNF<\/p><\/div>\n
Congressional technology aides are baffled that data-theft allegations against four former House IT workers \u2014 who were banned from the congressional network \u2014 have largely been ignored, and they fear the integrity of sensitive high-level information.<\/p>\n
Imran Awan and three relatives were colleagues until police banned them<\/a> from computer networks at the House of Representatives after suspicion the brothers accessed congressional computers without permission.<\/p>\n Five Capitol Hill technology aides told The Daily Caller News Foundation\u2019s Investigative Group\u00a0that members of Congress have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty\u00a0towards the suspects who\u00a0police say\u00a0victimized them. The baffled aides wonder if the suspects are blackmailing representatives based on the contents of their emails and files, to which they had full access.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what they have, but they have something on someone. It\u2019s been months at this point\u201d with no arrests, said Pat Sowers, who has managed IT for several House offices for 12 years. \u201cSomething is rotten in Denmark.\u201d<\/p>\n A manager at a tech-services company that works with Democratic House offices said he approached congressional offices, offering their services at one-fourth the price of Awan and his Pakistani brothers, but the members declined. At the time, he couldn\u2019t understand why his offers were rejected but now he\u00a0suspects the Awans exerted some type of leverage over members.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no question about it: If I was accused of a tenth of what these guys are accused of, they\u2019d take me out\u00a0in handcuffs that same day, and I\u2019d never work again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Awans\u2019 ban sent 20 members searching for new IT workers, but another contractor claims he\u2019s had difficulty convincing offices to let him fill the void, even when he seemed like a shoo-in. He says he has the sense some members wrongly believed that he blew\u00a0the whistle on the Awans\u2019 theft and they were angry at him for it.<\/p>\n Politico<\/a> reported\u00a0the Awan crew is\u00a0\u201caccused of stealing equipment from members\u2019 offices without their knowledge and committing serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network.\u201d<\/p>\n A House IT employee who requested anonymity said tech workers who have taken over some of those offices\u00a0found that computers in some \u2014 but not all \u2014 offices were \u201cthin clients\u201d that sent all data to an offsite server in violation of House policies. Additionally, staffers\u2019 iPhones were all linked to\u00a0a single non-government iTunes account.<\/p>\n Awan began working for Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida in 2005, and his wife, his brother\u2019s wife, and two of his brothers all appeared on the payrolls of various House Democrats soon after, payroll records show. They have collected $4 million<\/a>\u00a0since 2010.<\/p>\n For years, it was widely known\u00a0that Awan,\u00a0and eventually\u00a0his 20-year-old brother Jamal, did the bulk of the work for various offices, while no-show employees were listed on members\u2019 staffs in order to collect additional $165,000 salaries, workers said. This circumvented a rule that prevents any one staffer from making more than members of Congress.<\/p>\n Members were fiercely protective of the business,\u00a0despite objectively shoddy work and requests for computer help routinely ignored for weeks, all said. An IT specialist\u00a0who took over an Awan office said they did not keep an inventory of what hardware was there, and the office was paying for phone lines it hadn\u2019t used in years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe number of offices they had would definitely be suspicious. The loyalty [members] had [coupled with] customer service that wasn\u2019t there,\u201d Sowers said.<\/p>\n One Democratic IT staffer said Awan\u00a0\u201cwould come in and only help the member \u2014 he\u2019d tell me this \u2014 because staff come and go. There was one staffer whose computer was broken and said, \u2018I\u2019m not going to pay my invoices until you fix my computer,\u2019 and Imran went to the member, and they fired [the staffer who complained] that day. Imran has that power.\u201d<\/p>\n Sowers said, \u201cI love the Hill but to see this clear lack of concern over what appears to be a major breach bothers me.\u00a0Everyone has said for years they were breaking the rules, but it\u2019s just been a matter of time.\u201d<\/p>\n An employee of a third private company with House IT office contracts, who like most of the others requested anonymity, said the Awans had more offices than anyone, yet \u201cthere\u2019s networkers meetings once a week and I never saw them ever come to them. We have an email group; I never saw them contribute or reply.\u201d<\/p>\n The investigation goes far beyond the theft of millions of dollars. The employees could read all emails dozens of members of Congress sent and received, as well as access any files members and their staff stored. Court records show the brothers ran\u00a0a side business that owed\u00a0$100,000 to\u00a0an Iranian fugitive<\/a>\u00a0who has been tied to Hezbollah, and their stepmother says<\/a> they often send money to Pakistan.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re an admin for an office, yes, you have access to everything, you\u2019re the one providing access for others,\u201d the IT specialist said.<\/p>\n Wasserman Schultz, the victim of a disastrous hack while she was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, renamed Awan an \u201cadvisor\u201d to circumvent the Capitol Police\u2019s computer network ban on the brothers. Ohio Democratic\u00a0Rep. Marcia Fudge\u2019s office told Politico<\/a> a month after the ban that she had not fired Imran either.<\/p>\n After Wasserman Schultz\u00a0and Fudge, as well as New York Democratic Reps. Gregory Meeks and Yvette Clarke and the House Democratic Caucus office, retained the Awans, the incumbents or their staffs encouraged newly-elected members to place the family on their payrolls.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d think in the caucus they\u2019d know these guys were working for all of them and they couldn\u2019t possibly support all of them. Someone must have been turning a blind eye,\u201d the IT specialist said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have the power to shut down the office, remove all their data and lock everyone out. It\u2019s got to be a trusted adviser. How could you not see this?\u00a0Maybe it\u2019s not specifically blackmail, maybe it\u2019s, you knew this was going on and let me do this\u201d for years, the specialist continued.<\/p>\n Another Democratic IT contractor said members \u201care saying don\u2019t say anything, this will all blow over if we all don\u2019t say anything.\u201d The Awans\u00a0\u201chad [members]\u00a0in their pocket,\u201d and \u201cthere are a lot of members who could go down over this.\u201d<\/p>\n