Rep. Franks Predicts Awans Will Get Immunity For "Significant, Disturbing Story" About Wasserman Schultz

Last week the Washington Examiner reported that Hina Alvi, the wife of Debbie Wasserman Schultz"s now-infamous former IT staffer Imran Awan, had struck a deal with federal prosecutors to return to the U.S. where she currently faces charges of conspiracy and bank fraud.  The deal with prosecutors mandates a return to the U.S. during the "last week of September 2017" and is structured so that she will not be arrested in front of her children. 

Now, if you"re the cynical type, then it might have struck you as somewhat odd that Alvi would agree to return from Pakistan, the place to which she successfully fled specifically to avoid the charges she now seems to be embracing.

But, at least according to Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) who appeared on Fox News recently, there may be more to Alvi"s return than meets the eye as he predicts that the Awans could be working on a broader immunity deal with prosecutors in return for a "significant" and "pretty disturbing" story about Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

“I don’t want to talk out of school here but I think you"re going to see some revelations that are going to be pretty profound.  The fact that this wife is coming back from Pakistan and is willing to face charges, as it were, I think there is a good chance she is going to reach some type of immunity to tell a larger story here that is going to be pretty disturbing to the American people.”

"I would just predict that this is going to be a very significant story and people should fasten their seat belts on this one."

Of course, this follows speculation that surfaced last week suggesting that even if the Awans were originally acting to protect/extort Debbie Wasserman Schultz, that may have all changed on April 6, 2017 when Imran seemingly led U.S. Capitol Police directly to her laptop.  Per The Daily Caller:

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

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, according to a Capitol Police report reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group. Alongside the laptop were a Pakistani ID card, copies of Awan’s driver’s license and congressional ID badge, and letters to the U.S. attorney. Police also found notes in a composition notebook marked “attorney-client privilege.”

The laptop had the username “RepDWS,” even though the Florida Democrat and former Democratic National Committee chairman previously said it was Awan’s computer and that she had never even seen it.

The laptop was found on the second floor of the Rayburn building — a place Awan 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.

DWS"s story on the now-infamous laptop has "evolved" over the months...originally it was apparently her laptop back when she decided to threaten the U.S. Capitol Police Chief but later, after he stood his ground, DWS backtracked saying she had never seen the laptop and it never belonged to her.

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

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

She changed her story two months later, claiming it was Awan’s laptop — bought with taxpayer funds from her office — and she had never seen it. She said she only sought to protect Awan’s rights. “This was not my laptop,” she said August 3. “I have never seen that laptop. I don’t know what’s on the laptop.”

For those who missed DWS threatening the cops for a laptop that apparently didn"t even belong to her...it"s good entertainment.

So what say you...big nothing burger or are the walls closing in on DWS?

Arrested DNC Staffer Awan Retains Long-Time Clinton Associate For Legal Help

After getting arrested Monday night at Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia while attempting to flee the country on a flight to Qatar, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz" IT staffer, according to Conservative Review, has decided to hire a lawyer with longstanding connections to the Clinton family for legal help. 

Chris Gowen, a founding partner at Gowen, Rhoades, Winograd and Silva, apparently did a little bit of everything for the Clintons over the course of multiple years including working in the Clinton White House, helping President Bill Clinton write his book, "My Life", and serving on Hillary"s 2008 presidential campaign.  Per Gowen"s bio:

Mr. Gowen left the Public Defender’s office to work for former President William Jefferson Clinton and then-Senator Hillary Clinton. Chris was a fact checker for President Clinton’s memoir, My Life. He also served as a traveling aid for President Clinton’s national and international trips. Chris finished his tenure with the Clintons by directing the advance operations for then-Senator Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign.

Another biography, published on the American University website, says Gowen worked with several other controversial Clinton projects, including The Clinton Global Initiative, The Clinton Foundation, and The Clinton Health Access Initiative.

Shortly after Awan’s arrest, Gowen immediately jumped into the fray and hit the ground running with allegations that Awan was a victim of Islamophobia. He labeled Awan’s arrest as part of “a right-wing media-driven prosecution by a United States Attorney’s Office that wants to prosecute people for working while Muslim"...it"s almost as if the words are coming straight from Hillary"s mouth.

As we noted last night, Imran Awan has been charged with bank fraud but it is unclear whether that charge is just a placeholder for other charges that are yet to come.  While details are scarce, media reports have alleged that Awan and his brothers potentially ran a procurement scheme in which they bought equipment, then overcharged various House members that employed their IT firm.  Meanwhile, some congressional technology aides have alleged that the Awan’s were blackmailing representatives based on the contents of their emails and files, due to the fact that these representatives have displayed unwavering and intense loyalty towards the former aides.

As background, Imran was first employed in 2004 by former Democrat Rep. Robert Wexler (FL) as an “information technology director”, before he began working in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s office in 2005.

The family was paid extremely well, with Imran Awan being paid nearly $2 million working as an IT support staffer for House Democrats since 2004. Abid Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, were each paid more than $1 million working for House Democrats. In total, since 2003, the family has collected nearly $5 million.

In total, Imran"s firm was employed by 31 Democrats in Congress, some of whom held extremely sensitive positions on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Some of the #Democrats who had Pakistani IT workers (currently under investigation) on their payroll. #AwanBrothers https://t.co/XvrJ6H1iW9 pic.twitter.com/gVjNkfqWH3

— Nick Short ???????? (@PoliticalShort) May 22, 2017

Of course, one of the most intriguing parts of the Awan narrative is precisely why former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (DWS) decided to keep him on her taxpayer-funded payroll right up until his arrest yesterday and whether that decision had anything to do with the whole DNC / Hillary email scandals that erupted last summer.

Along those lines, RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel posed the following questions to DWS earlier this morning...

Debbie Wasserman Shultz needs to answer mounting questions about her staffer’s questionable and illegal actions… pic.twitter.com/2SRZIGiBAa

— GOP (@GOP) July 26, 2017

...and appeared on Fox Business to discuss DWS" curious decisions with regards to Awan (forward to the 4:00 minute mark in the video below for the relevant discussion).

“[Wasserman Schultz] kept him on her staff. He was a taxpayer-funded government employee until yesterday when she finally fired him.  We need to figure out why he’s under criminal investigation and we’re not hearing that across the country right now."

"We have to get to the bottom of this, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz has obstructed at every level on something that affects potentially our national security.  We are not hearing the Democrats talk about it at all. Where’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz?”

A preliminary hearing for Mr. Awan is scheduled for August 21.