Mark Tapscott
\nThe Daily Caller<\/p>\n
Somebody must have thought they were hiding something by smashing those computer hard-drives the FBI recovered from the home of Imran Awan, Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz\u2019s former information technology (IT) aide.<\/p>\n
But odds are excellent they were wrong. Federal law enforcement authorities may have already recovered and read whatever was on those hard drives.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt depends on what happens, but even if it is hit with a hammer, it probably doesn\u2019t damage the platters that actually hold the data, which remains recoverable,\u201d said Tom Hakim, engineering supervisor for\u00a0werecoverdata.com<\/a>, a New York-based lab that specializes in difficult digital retrieval.<\/p>\n \u201cIn most cases, it\u2019s very likely\u201d the information on a smashed hard drive can be recovered \u201cin two or three days, maybe a week,\u201d Hakim said.<\/p>\n His lab, which does extensive work for law enforcement and Fortune 500 corporations, has also recovered data from disks that were in fires and that had been submerged in water.<\/p>\n Completing this poll entitles you to Daily Caller news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our\u00a0Privacy Policy<\/a>\u00a0andTerms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n That may be very bad news for Pakistani-born Imran. He and his younger brothers Abid and Jamal, his wife Hina Alvi and his best friend Rao Abbas are\u00a0criminal suspects<\/a>\u00a0in a federal investigation first made public in February into abuse of the congressional IT servers, including the possible transfer of\u00a0data, emails<\/a>and files from the offices of dozens of House Democrats.<\/p>\n Imran had worked for Wasserman Schultz \u2014 who resigned in July 2016 as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee after its IT system was hacked \u2014 since 2005. His relatives and friend had also worked on and off as IT aides, being paid collectively\u00a0more than $4 million\u00a0<\/a>from 2009 to 2016.<\/p>\n All five of the suspects lost access to the congressional IT system in February, and all of them were removed from office payrolls except Hina who left the country in March. Wasserman Schultz only fired Imran the day after his arrest and\u00a0appeared prepared<\/a>\u00a0to keep paying him in Pakistan had he not been arrested.<\/p>\n