AWAN CASE: DNC Lawyer Scrambling To Block Evidence From Hidden Laptop Tied To Wasserman Schultz

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

 A lawyer for former DNC IT staffer Imran Awan is scrambling to block evidence found on a hidden laptop which may contain proof of a massive spy ring operating at the highest levels of Congress, in what may be the largest breach of National Security in U.S. history.

Awan, a Pakistani national, worked for dozens of Democratic members of Congress along with his wife, two brothers and a friend. Following the publication of DNC emails by WikiLeaks in the lead-up to the 2016 election, Congressional investigators discovered that the Awans had a secret server being housed by the House Democratic Caucus backed up to an offsite Dropbox account.

“For members to say their data was not compromised is simply inaccurate. They had access to all the data including all emails. Imran Awan is the walking example of an insider threat, a criminal actor who had access to everything,” -Daily Caller

According to a briefing, "all five of the shared employees system administrators collectively logged onto the [House Democratic] Caucus system 5,735 times, or an average of 27 times per day,” despite only one of them being authorized to do so.

The Awans were banned from the House IT network on February 2, 2017 after being named in a criminal investigation - however they continued to work in the building for Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz until Imran Awan"s arrest at Dulles Airport trying to flee the country in late July. Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, were charged with conspiracy and bank fraud in relation to a real estate transaction.

The laptop in question was tucked away in a tiny room formerly used as a phone booth on the second floor of the Rayburn House Office Building late one night in March, only to be found by Capitol Police just after midnight on April 6, 2017 along with notebooks marked "attorney client privilege," letters addressed to the US Attorney of DC regarding Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and several forms of identification. Based on the contents of the backpack, some believe Awan wanted the laptop to be found.

Attorney-Client Privilege

Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller, who has been tracking the Awan case, reports that Awan"s attorney Chris Gowen - a former aide to Hillary Clinton, is seeking to block the laptop evidence by arguing the "attorney client privilege" note attached to the notebook found with the laptop covers the contents of the hard drive, according to court papers filed Tuesday.

Via the Daily Caller:

"Chris Gowen, Awan’s attorney, said at the last hearing: “We do expect there being an attorney-client privilege issue in this case… What occurred is a backpack from my client was found, he was trying to get a better signal, there was a note that said attorney client privilege and a hard drive. We feel very strongly about this.”

A Capitol Police report reveals the following items were found in the backpack:

#1 a Pakistani ID card with the name Mohommed Ashraf Awan
#2 a copy – not original – of a driver’s license with name Imran Awan
#3 a copy (front and back) of his congressional ID
#4 an Apple laptop with the homescreen initials ‘RepDWS’
#5 composition notebooks with notes handwritten saying ‘attorney client privilege’ and possibly discussing case details below
#6 loose letters addressed to US Attorney of DC discussing the apparent owner of the bag being investigated.

As Rosiak points out, it is unclear how the handwritten note saying "attorney client privilege" could be construed to cover a hard drive, rather than the pages of [the] notebook it was contained on.

Andrew McCarthy, a former chief assistant U.S. attorney who has followed the case, said “The A/C (attorney-client) privilege only applies to communications between the client and lawyer that are for the purpose of seeking legal advice and that are intended by both parties to be kept confidential… Moreover, asserting that something is A/C protected does not make it so. You still have to show that the material in question constitutes communications strictly between the lawyer and client that were for the purpose of seeking legal advice.

“If I give my lawyer my bank records and ask him if they show evidence of a crime, the bank records do not become A/C-privileged — only his advice to me would be A/C-privileged. And if I stuck a sign on my bank records that said ‘A/C-privileged documents,’ that would not make them A/C-privileged documents,” he told The Daily Caller News Foundation Wednesday." -Daily Caller

Debbie Downer

In May of 2016, Debbie Wasserman Schulz - an employer and personal friend of Awan - spent several minutes browbeating the Chief of DC Capitol Police at a budget meeting, claiming the laptop should be given back since it was hers and threatening "consequences" if it wasn"t returned.

#DebbieWassermanSchultz threatens DC Police Chief over not returning Arwan Bros laptop. "there will be consequences" https://t.co/2phDMnvWq5 pic.twitter.com/e2wkBJSaim

— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) May 25, 2017

Of Note

The Awan brothers were managing computers for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence - a group with top secret clearance which is looking into Russian election interference right now.

Also of note

The brothers were "shared employees," hired by multiple Democrats for IT work whenever it was needed - so they floated all over the place doing all sorts of work on House members computers. Democrats Juaquin Castro, Cedric Richmond, Andre Carson, Jackie Speier, Tammy Duckworth, and Louis Frankel all employed the Awans.

Information Brokers? 

Judge Andrew Napolitano appeared on Fox Business Network in late July where he dropped a bombshell: not only did the Awans had access to the emails of every member of Congress, Imran Awan reportedly sold information to still unknown parties, which the FBI is currently investigating.

Napolitano: He was arrested for some financial crime - that"s the tip of the iceberg. The real allegation against him is that he had access to the emails of every member of congress and he sold what he found in there. What did he sell, and to whom did he sell it? That"s what the FBI wants to know. This may be a very, very serious national security situation.

 

Varney: Wait a second, he was the IT worker along with his two Pakistani brothers, for DWS, and other Democrats in the House - and the theory is that he got access to all of their secrets or whatever, and sold some?

 

Napolitano: Yes, and this was at the time that Congresswoman Schultz was also the chair of the Democratic National Committee. So at this point I don"t believe they know what he sold, and to whom he sold it - but they do know what he had access to, which is virtually everything in the House of representatives, which would include classified material in the House intelligence committee.

 

 

Lt. Colonel Tony Shaffer went even further - claiming that the Awan brothers were linked to the Muslim Brotherhood while working for Democrat Congressman Andre Carson, a report reinforced by Frontpage Magazine:

 

As Frontpage reported in February:

The office of Andre Carson, the second Muslim in Congress, had employed Imran Awan. As did the offices of Jackie Speier and Debbie Wasserman Schultz; to whom the letter had been addressed.

Carson is the second Muslim in Congress and the first Muslim on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and, more critically, is the ranking member on its Emerging Threats Subcommittee. He is also a member of the Department of Defense Intelligence and Overhead Architecture Subcommittee.

The Emerging Threats Subcommittee, of which Carson is a ranking member, is responsible for much of counterterrorism oversight. It is the worst possible place for a man with Carson’s credentials.

Carson had inherited his grandmother’s seat and exploited it to promote a radical Islamist agenda. He has interfaced with a laundry list of Islamist groups from CAIR to ISNA to ICNA to MPAC. Islamists have funded Carson’s career to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. The Center for Security Policy has put together a dossier of Carson’s connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is the parent organization of many key Islamic terror groups posing a threat to our national security including Al Qaeda and Hamas.

Andre Carson shared the stage at a CAIR banquet with Sirraj Wahaj: an unindicted co-conspirator in the World Trade Center bombing who had once declared,” You don’t get involved in politics because it’s the American thing to do. You get involved in politics because politics are a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.” CAIR itself had been named an unindicted co-conspirator in terror finance.

Immunity for Hina?

In September, it was reported that Hina Alvi - Imran Awan"s wife, had struck a deal with federal prosecutors to return to the U.S. from Pakistan to face conspiracy and bank fraud charges.

Alvi and her children fled to the safety of Pakistan in early 2017, so her voluntary return - which was structured with an arrest to be made "not in front of her children" is significant. Upon her return to the United States, Hina was arraigned on four felony counts of bank fraud and handed over her U.S. passport to prosecutors.

Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) says that Alvi"s return may be part of 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."

 

Despite the volumes of evidence stacking up against the former DNC IT staffers, Debbie Wasserman Schultz claims the entire investigation of the Awans is nothing more than Islamophobia.

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Hungary"s Ruling Party Hands Out Book Targeting George Soros

Authored by Jacob Bojesson via The Daily Caller,

Hungary’s ruling party is stepping up its campaign against billionaire investor George Soros by distributing a book that accuses the financier of pursuing a plan to flood Europe with migrants.

The book, titled “George Soros,” is written by Andreas von Rétyi - a German author known for pushing conspiracy theories about UFOs and what caused the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the U.S.

 

Fidesz, a conservative party led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, plans to distribute 5,000 copies to local politicians across the country.

 

“The book is a detailed and accurate piece,” Fidesz spokesman János Halász told broadcaster RTL Klub, according to newspaper Die Welt.

The Orban administration launched an anti-Soros campaign in the spring to halt the Hungarian-born investor’s operations in the country.

The streets of Budapest were filled with posters and billboards of the Hungarian-born billionaire with the caption “Don’t let Soros get the last laugh!”

Hungarian government poster portraying financier George Soros and saying "Don"t let George Soros have the last laugh" is seen at an underground stop in Budapest.

The campaign claims that Soros wants a 1 million refugee influx to Europe per year.

“The Hungarian standpoint is that illegal migration is clearly a matter of national security,” Orban’s spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in a recent interview.

 

“We shall mobilize the political and legal power of the Hungarian state against anyone who undermines the security of Hungary – regardless of their origins, religious affiliation or wealth.”

Soros struck back at Orban by describing his “mafia state” as “one which maintains a facade of democracy.”

Discovery Of Another Democratic "Secret Server" May Have Prompted Imran Awan's Firing, Report

The mysterious case of Imran Awan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz"s now indicted former IT staffer, continues to grow more interesting by the day.  As we"ve noted before, Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, have so far only been charged with bank fraud and conspiracy though new allegations of wrongdoing seemingly surface on a daily basis. 

Now, the latest revelation comes via an exclusive report from The Daily Caller which suggests that Awan may have been fired only after Capitol Police discovered a "secret server" being housed by the House Democratic Caucus.

A secret server is behind law enforcement’s decision to ban a former IT aide to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the House network.

Now-indicted former congressional IT aide Imran Awan allegedly routed data from numerous House Democrats to a secret server. Police grew suspicious and requested a copy of the server early this year, but they were provided with an elaborate falsified image designed to hide the massive violations. The falsified image is what ultimately triggered their ban from the House network Feb. 2, according to a senior House official with direct knowledge of the investigation.

The secret server was connected to the House Democratic Caucus, an organization chaired by then-Rep. Xavier Becerra. Police informed Becerra that the server was the subject of an investigation and requested a copy of it. Authorities considered the false image they received to be interference in a criminal investigation, the senior official said.

Data was also backed up to Dropbox in huge quantities, the official said. Congressional offices are prohibited from using Dropbox, so an unofficial account was used, meaning Awan could have still had access to the data even though he was banned from the congressional network.

Awan had access to all emails and office computer files of 45 members of Congress who are listed below. Fear among members that Awan could release embarrassing information if they cooperated with prosecutors could explain why the Democrats have refused to acknowledge the cybersecurity breach publicly or criticize the suspects.

According to the DC, the "secret server" was discovered when California Congressman, and chair of the House Democratic Caucus, Xavier Becerra asked to have his server wiped clean (you know, like with a cloth) in advance of his departure to take his new seat as Attorney General of California.

On Jan. 24, 2017, Becerra vacated his congressional seat to become California’s attorney general. “He wanted to wipe his server, and we brought to his attention it was under investigation. The light-off was we asked for an image of the server, and they deliberately turned over a fake server,” the senior official said.

“They were using the House Democratic Caucus as their central service warehouse … It was a breach. The data was completely out of [the members’] possession. Does it mean it was sold to the Russians? I don’t know,” the senior official said.

Capitol Police considered the image a sign that the Awans knew exactly what they were doing and were going to great lengths to try to cover it up, the senior official said. The House Sergeant-at-Arms banned them from the network as a result.

The senior official said the data was also funneled offsite via a Dropbox account, from which copies could easily be downloaded. Authorities could not immediately shut down the account when the Awans were banned from the network because it was not an official account.

“For members to say their data was not compromised is simply inaccurate. They had access to all the data including all emails. Imran Awan is the walking example of an insider threat, a criminal actor who had access to everything,” the senior official said.

Meanwhile, these latest allegations come after Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) appeared on Fox News yesterday to share his prediction 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."

This all 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.

Of course, we"re certain this is just more attempts to "criminalize behavior that is normal."

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?

Marine Who Found Smashed Awan Equipment Blasts Wasserman Schultz Over ‘Islamophobia’ Claim

 

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

The U.S. Marine who discovered smashed hard drives and other electronics in the garage of a rented home owned by indicted DNC IT staffer Imran Awan is outraged over claims of ‘Islamophobia’ from Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Andre Taggart turned the damaged equipment over to the FBI, which is investigating the former Wasserman Schultz employee for a variety of suspected crimes, including procurement fraud, violations of the congressional IT network, and using an off-site server to divert data.

When former DNC chairman Schultz claimed that U.S. Capitol Police are only investigating a ‘persecuted’ Awan due to Islamophobia, Taggart - a Democrat, called BS and decided to speak up.

Via the Daily Caller:

Taggart told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group Wednesday that “it was amazing” that Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, describes Imran as a victim of religious discrimination by law enforcement. Taggart rented the Northern Virginia home of Awan, who had frantically moved out after learning authorities were onto him.

“It pisses me off,” said Taggart, a black Marine who says he votes Democrat. He believes Wasserman Schultz is crying wolf and devaluing the meaning of genuine discrimination, while also exposing herself and the nation to risks.

The day after the Daily Caller reported that Taggart had found and turned over the damaged equipment to the FBI in July, Imran attempted to flee the country, only to be arrested by the FBI at Dulles International Airport. The Awans had transferred and smuggled nearly $300,000 out of the U.S. before Imran’s arrest.

Taggart’s identity was originally withheld when the Daily Caller broke the story about the smashed hard drives in July, however the Democrat marine said he made the decision to come forward because he is concerned that ‘fellow Democrats are making a grave mistake by ignoring a scandal with serious criminal and national security implications,’ reports TheDCNF.

“I’m absolutely disgusted with everything going on in the country right now, mostly because of right-wing conservatives, but with respect to this situation, political affiliation is irrelevant,” said Taggart.

In addition to the four counts of fraud in relation to a Home Equity Line of Credit Imran Awan and his wife fraudulently applied for and subsequently sent to Pakistan, the Awans are suspected of a variety of other offenses – up to and including sending classified information to foreign enemies of the United States.

“Him, his wife, his brother, all working down there — there’s no way they could do this without help. If we can drag Trump and his wingnuts through the mud for the Russia influence that they are having, then it’s only fair that we also expose this s–t,” said Taggart.

Lawsuit!?

When Imran Awan discovered that Taggart was holding onto the damaged equipment from his rented garage, he threatened to sue to get it back. Awan also listed the house for sale right after signing a multi-year lease.

“They took advantage of us,” said Taggart.

Awan relative Syed Ahmed told The Daily Mail “for the sake of money they would have done anything… [Imran] might have been selling this information.”

Both Judge Napolitano and Lt. Colonel Tony Shaffer have said that their intel sources believe the Awans were spying on congress and selling information:

 

To follow the latest on the Awan saga, follow Luke Rosiak at the Daily Caller and investigator George Webb.

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Awan Plot Thickens As NY Democrat Yvette Clarke "Quietly" Wrote-Off $120,000 Of Missing Tech Equipment

When we reported last week that Imran Awan and his wife had been indicted by a grand jury on 4 counts, including bank fraud and making false statements related to some home equity loans, we also noted that those charges could simply be placeholders for further developments yet to come.  Now, according to a new report from the Daily Caller, the more interesting component of the FBI"s investigation could be tied to precisely why New York Democrat Representative Yvette Clarke quietly agreed in early 2016 to simply write-off $120,000 in missing electronics tied to the Awans.

A chief of staff for Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke quietly agreed in early 2016 to sign away a $120,000 missing electronics problem on behalf of two former IT aides now suspected of stealing equipment from Congress, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

Clarke’s chief of staff at the time effectively dismissed the loss and prevented it from coming up in future audits by signing a form removing the missing equipment from a House-wide tracking system after one of the Awan brothers alerted the office the equipment was gone. The Pakistani-born brothers are now at the center of an FBI investigation over their IT work with dozens of Congressional offices.

The $120,000 figure amounts to about a tenth of the office’s annual budget, or enough to hire four legislative assistants to handle the concerns of constituents in her New York district. Yet when one of the brothers alerted the office to the massive loss, the chief of staff signed a form that quietly reconciled the missing equipment in the office budget, the official told TheDCNF. Abid Awan remained employed by the office for months after the loss of the equipment was flagged.

If true, of course this new information would seem to support previously reported rumors that the Awans orchestrated a long-running fraud scheme in which their office would purchase equipment in a way that avoided tracking by central House-wide administrators and then sell that equipment for a personal gain while simultaneously defrauding taxpayers of $1,000"s of dollars. 

Meanwhile, according to the Daily Caller, CDW Government could have been in on the scheme.

They’re suspected of working with an employee of CDW Government Inc. — one of the Hill’s largest technology providers — to alter invoices in order to avoid tracking. The result would be that no one outside the office would notice if the equipment disappeared, and investigators think the goal of the scheme was to remove and sell the equipment outside of Congress.

CDW spokeswoman Kelly Caraher told TheDCNF the company is cooperating with investigators, and has assurance from prosecutors its employees are not targets of the investigation. “CDW and its employees have cooperated fully with investigators and will continue to do so,” Caraher said. “The prosecutors directing this investigation have informed CDW and its coworkers that they are not subjects or targets of the investigation.”

Not surprisingly, Clarke"s office apparently felt no need whatsoever to report the $120,000 worth of missing IT equipment to the authorities...it"s just taxpayer money afterall...

According to the official who talked to TheDCNF, Clarke’s chief of staff did not alert authorities to the huge sum of missing money when it was brought to the attention of the office around February of 2016. A request to sign away that much lost equipment would have been “way outside any realm of normalcy,” the official said, but the office did not bring it to the attention of authorities until months later when House administrators told the office they were reviewing finances connected to the Awans.

The administrators informed the office that September they were independently looking into discrepancies surrounding the Awans, including a review of finances connected to the brothers in all the congressional offices that employed them. The House administrators asked Clarke’s then-chief of staff, Wendy Anderson, whether she had noticed any anomalies, and at that time she alerted them to the $120,000 write-off, the official told TheDCNF.

Of course, the missing $120,000 covers only Clarke’s office. As we"ve noted before, Imran and his relatives worked for more than 40 current House members when they were banned from the House network in February, and have together worked for dozens more in past years so who know just how deep this particular rabbit hole goes.

Also makes you wonder what else Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the Awans might be hiding.  Certainly the decision by Wasserman-Shultz to keep Awan on her taxpayer funded payroll, right up until he was arrested by the FBI while trying to flee the country, is looking increasingly fishy with each passing day.

Wasserman-Schultz IT Aide Arrested While Attempting To Flee Country, Charged With Bank Fraud

Just a day after reports emerged that the FBI had seized a number of "smashed hard drives" and other computer equipment from the residence Imran Awan, the IT aide of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, we learn that Awan has been captured at the Dulles airport while attempted to flee the country.  According to Fox News, Awan has been charged with bank fraud.

Feds/USCP bust Hse IT staffer Imran Awan & charge him with multiple counts of bank fraud as part of Hse IT procurement scandal

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 25, 2017

Feds/USCP picked up Imran Awan at Dulles Aiport last night as he was "trying to leave the country." Has been arraigned. Surrendered passport

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 25, 2017

Inexplicably, or perhaps not, Awan has been kept on the payroll of former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz despite a rapidly escalating scandal that potentially involves multiple federal crimes.

Group of Hse Dems fired other Hse IT staffers probed by USCP. But Wasserman Schultz kept Awan on payroll. He was barred from Hse servers

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 25, 2017

Fox is told that Hse IT staffer Imran Awan is still on Hse payroll for moment under Wasserman Schultz.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 25, 2017

Meanwhile, here is a list of the 30 other Democrats that had the Awans on their taxpayer-funded payrolls.

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

For those who have managed to avoid this story, which wouldn"t be difficult given that the mainstream media has made every attempt to ignore it, the Pakistani-born brothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan are at the center of a criminal investigation by U.S. Capital Hill Police and the FBI.  Up until now, allegations of wrong doing have varied from overcharging taxpayers for congressional IT equipment to blackmailing members of Congress with secrets captured from the emails of their Democrat employers.

Just yesterday we learned that FBI agents reportedly seized a number of "smashed hard drives" and other computer equipment from the Awan"s former residence in Virginia.

FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s information technology (IT) administrator, according to an individual who was interviewed by Bureau investigators in the case and a high level congressional source.

Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back, the individual told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

The congressional source, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, confirmed that the FBI has joined what Politico previously described as a Capitol Police criminal probe into “serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network” by Imran and three of his relatives, who had access to the emails and files of the more than two dozen House Democrats who employed them on a part-time basis.

Capitol Police have also seized computer equipment tied to the Florida lawmaker.

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.

The staffer’s services were so important to congressional members, that on March 22, 2016, eight democrat members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a letter, requesting that their staffers be granted access to Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI). Of those that signed the letter were representatives Jackie Speier (CA) and Andre Carson (IN), the second Muslim in Congress, both of whom employed the Awan brothers.

The brothers were also employed by members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, such as: Jackie Speier (D-CA), Andre Carson (D-IN), Joaquín Castro (D-TX), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Robin Kelly (D-IL), and Ted Lieu (D-CA). Lieu has since openly called for leaks by members of President Trump"s administration despite the fact that he may until recently have been under surveillance by a foreign entity.

One bombshell that has been all but ignored by the main stream media is that Imran Awan had access to Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s iPad password, meaning that the brothers also had direct access to the notorious DNC emails.

The brothers are accused of removing hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment from congressional offices, including computers and servers, while also running a procurement scheme in which they bought equipment, then overcharged the House administrative office that assigns such contractors to members.

Some congressional technology aides believe that the Awan’s are 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.

Meanwhile, back in March the Daily Caller reported that the Awan brothers were essentially holding their stepmother in "captivity" in order to extort her for money she had stashed away in Pakistan.

Congressional staffers allegedly held their stepmother in “captivity” with violent threats in a plan to use her to access money stashed away in the Middle East. The staffers are suspected of using their positions to enrich themselves.

Days before U.S. Capitol Police told House members three Pakistani brothers who ran their computer networks may have stolen congressional data, their stepmother called Fairfax County, Virginia police to say the Democratic staffers were keeping her from her husband’s deathbed.

A relative described the woman’s life as being completely controlled by the brothers for months while they schemed to take their father’s life insurance.

The brothers — who as IT professionals for Congress could read House members’ emails — allegedly used wiretapping devices on their own stepmother and threatened to abduct loved ones in Pakistan if she didn’t give them access to money stowed away in that country.

Of course, if Republicans and/or members of the Trump administration hired foreign-born IT specialists who were suspected of committing a laundry list of federal crimes and then smashed a bunch of hard drives just before skipping town...we"re sure the media would still gloss right over it in much the same way they"re doing for the the Democrats in this instance.

Friend Insists Death Of Republican Operative Behind WSJ Collusion "Bombshell" Wasn't A Suicide

Yesterday we reported how the death of Peter Smith, a longtime Republican operative and financier, had been ruled a suicide. Smith was the primary source for a bizarre WSJ story that tried to link National Security Adviser Mike Flynn with a group of individuals organized by Smith who bargained with a Russian hacker group for copies of what were purportedly Hillary Clinton’s missing 30,000 emails.

Smith died on May 14 – 10 days after he was interviewed by WSJ for the piece. Though a reporter initially described his death as stemming from natural causes, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday that it had been, in fact, a suicide, citing local police records that describe the manner of death – asphyxiation due to helium poisoning – and an alleged suicide note that cited his recent ill health and the coming expiry of a life insurance policy as Smith’s reasons for taking his own life.

But before that narrative could catch hold, a longtime associate of Smith who may have been the last person to speak with him has come forward, telling the Daily Caller that he doesn’t believe the police’s suicide ruling…and neither should you.

Charles Ortel, a Wall Street investment banker and market analyst, told the DC that there were no indications the Chicago businessman and anti-Clinton political investigator was about to take his life when the two spoke on the phone the day before his death.

“He may have been a fantastic actor but I certainly didn’t leave that phone call saying, ‘oh shit, the guy’s at the end of his rope,’” Charles Ortel, a Wall Street investment banker and market analyst, told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s (TheDCNF) Investigative Group.

“This does not seem like a settled story. It made perfect sense to me he might have died of natural causes, but little chance he would have killed himself,” Smith said.

Ortel and Smith had a common interest in the Clintons. Ortel has dug deeply into the financial operations of the Clinton Foundation. He first came to public attention in 2007 by exposing questionable accounting practices at General Electric, according to the DC.

And Smith reportedly had a hand in exposing then Gov. Bill Clinton’s “Troopergate” scandal, where the future president used state troopers to guard him while he was having sex with various women who were not his wife.

Ortel said in his last phone call to him, Smith seemed to be upbeat and very interested in future projects.

Initially, Ortel assumed Smith died of natural causes, but after reading the police report, which included a description of a jerry-rigged suffocation device that’s widely used by terminally ill patients who opt to take their own lives, he’s not so sure.

 “There are lots of older guys like him who still ‘have it ‘and they’re still smart.  They like projects. They like the intellectual stimulation. He was very interested and pleased with his work,”  Ortel said.

Ortel also said the description of the suicide note – with its all-caps type – was out of character for Smith, and that, out of all the emails they’d sent to each other, he couldn’t remember a single example of Smith typing in all caps.

Ortel also was suspicious about the note Smith allegedly left behind, written in all caps, stating “NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER.”

He also noted that many life insurance policies typically exclude payments to beneficiaries in the case of suicide.

He wrote that he was taking his own life because of a “RECENT BAD TURN IN HEALTH SINCE JANUARY, 2017” and that his timing was related “TO LIFE INSURANCE OF $5 MILLION EXPIRING.”

Assuming, for a moment, Smith’s death was the result of foul play: what’s the explanation? Could it have been a politically motivated attack? In the original WSJ story, Smith said he’d received a cache of documents purporting to be the missing 30,000 emails that Clinton withheld from the FBI and State Department, but withheld them because he had doubts about their veracity. Maybe Smith was in possession of the legitimate emails, but lied about turning them over to Wikileaks. What if the Democrats were somehow warned about what Smith had in his possession, or at least what he believed he might have had. Is another "Seth Rich" scenario emerging?
 

Congressional Aides Fear Suspects In IT Breach Are Blackmailing Members With Their Own Data

Authored by Luke Rosiak via The Daily Caller,

Congressional technology aides are baffled that data-theft allegations against four former House IT workers — who were banned from the congressional network — have largely been ignored, and they fear the integrity of sensitive high-level information.

Imran Awan and three relatives were colleagues until police banned them from computer networks at the House of Representatives after suspicion the brothers accessed congressional computers without permission.

Five Capitol Hill technology aides told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group that members of Congress have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty towards the suspects who police say victimized 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.

“I don’t know what they have, but they have something on someone. It’s been months at this point” with no arrests, said Pat Sowers, who has managed IT for several House offices for 12 years. “Something is rotten in Denmark.”

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’t understand why his offers were rejected but now he suspects the Awans exerted some type of leverage over members.

“There’s no question about it: If I was accused of a tenth of what these guys are accused of, they’d take me out in handcuffs that same day, and I’d never work again,” he said.

The Awans’ ban sent 20 members searching for new IT workers, but another contractor claims he’s 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 the whistle on the Awans’ theft and they were angry at him for it.

Politico reported the Awan crew is “accused of stealing equipment from members’ offices without their knowledge and committing serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network.”

A House IT employee who requested anonymity said tech workers who have taken over some of those offices found that computers in some — but not all — offices were “thin clients” that sent all data to an offsite server in violation of House policies. Additionally, staffers’ iPhones were all linked to a single non-government iTunes account.

Awan began working for Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida in 2005, and his wife, his brother’s 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 since 2010.

For years, it was widely known that Awan, and eventually his 20-year-old brother Jamal, did the bulk of the work for various offices, while no-show employees were listed on members’ 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.

Members were fiercely protective of the business, despite objectively shoddy work and requests for computer help routinely ignored for weeks, all said. An IT specialist who 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’t used in years.

“The number of offices they had would definitely be suspicious. The loyalty [members] had [coupled with] customer service that wasn’t there,” Sowers said.

One Democratic IT staffer said Awan “would come in and only help the member — he’d tell me this — because staff come and go. There was one staffer whose computer was broken and said, ‘I’m not going to pay my invoices until you fix my computer,’ and Imran went to the member, and they fired [the staffer who complained] that day. Imran has that power.”

Sowers said, “I love the Hill but to see this clear lack of concern over what appears to be a major breach bothers me. Everyone has said for years they were breaking the rules, but it’s just been a matter of time.”

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 “there’s 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.”

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 a side business that owed $100,000 to an Iranian fugitive who has been tied to Hezbollah, and their stepmother says they often send money to Pakistan.

“When you’re an admin for an office, yes, you have access to everything, you’re the one providing access for others,” the IT specialist said.

Wasserman Schultz, the victim of a disastrous hack while she was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, renamed Awan an “advisor” to circumvent the Capitol Police’s computer network ban on the brothers. Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge’s office told Politico a month after the ban that she had not fired Imran either.

After Wasserman Schultz and 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.

“You’d think in the caucus they’d know these guys were working for all of them and they couldn’t possibly support all of them. Someone must have been turning a blind eye,” the IT specialist said.

“You have the power to shut down the office, remove all their data and lock everyone out. It’s got to be a trusted adviser. How could you not see this? Maybe it’s not specifically blackmail, maybe it’s, you knew this was going on and let me do this” for years, the specialist continued.

Another Democratic IT contractor said members “are saying don’t say anything, this will all blow over if we all don’t say anything.” The Awans “had [members] in their pocket,” and “there are a lot of members who could go down over this.”

Here's The Story Behind Trump's Podesta-Russia Tweet

President Trump took to Twitter this morning to remind Americans that the "It was Russia" stone-throwers on the left may have been living in Russia-funded glass-houses after all...

Watch @foxandfriends now on Podesta and Russia!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017

The story behind this Podesta-Russia link is explained in full gore by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog; dot connectors, Twitter diagram creators and newly minted Russia-conspiracy sleuths from sea to shining sea take note.

Since anything connected to Russia is now considered treasonous, I’ve got a great story for you to sniff out.

It relates to John Podesta, but somehow I doubt you’ll be interested in this one…

The Daily Caller reports:

John Podesta, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 national campaign chairman, may have violated federal law by failing to disclose the receipt of 75,000 shares of stock from a Kremlin-financed company when he joined the Obama White House in 2014, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

Joule Unlimited Technologies — financed in part by a Russian firm —  originally awarded Podesta 100,000 shares of stock options when in 2010 he joined that board along with its Dutch-based entities: Joule Global Holdings, BV and the Stichting Joule Global Foundation.

When Podesta announced his departure from the Joule board in January 2014 to become President Obama’s special counsellor, the company officially issued him 75,000 common shares of stock.

The Schedule B section of the federal government’s form 278 which — requires financial disclosures for government officials — required Podesta to “report any purchase, sale or exchange by you, your spouse, or dependent children…of any property, stocks, bonds, commodity futures and other securities when the amount of the transaction exceeded $1,000.”

The same year Podesta joined Joule, the company agreed to accept 1-Billion-Rubles — or $35 million — from Rusnano, a state-run and financed Russian company with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

Anatoly Chubais, the company CEO and two other top Russian banking executives worked together with Podesta on the Joule boards. The board met six times a year.

Ron Hosko, a former FBI assistant director said because of the Kremlin backing, it was essential Podesta disclose the financial benefits he received from the company.

“I think in this case where you’re talking about foreign interests and foreign involvement, the collateral interest with these disclosure forms is put in the forefront of full disclosure of any foreign interest that you may have,” he told TheDCNF in an interview.

The existence of the 75,000 shares of Joule stock was first revealed by the Government Accountability Institute report issued last year.

But Podesta didn’t pocket all the shares. Correspondence from Podesta to Joule instructed the firm to transfer only 33,693 shares to Leonidio Holdings, a brand-new entity he incorporated only on December 20, 2013, about ten days before he entered the White House.

Leonidio is registered in Delaware as a limited liability corporation. Podesta listed the address of his daughter, Megan Rouse, in the incorporation papers. His mother and father also appear to be co-owners of Leonidio.

TheDCNF made multiple inquiries to OGE and received no reply. TheDCNF inquiries to Mr. Podesta were not returned.

That"s not the end of the story though, as John Podesta"s brother, Tony, confirmed Russia"s largest bank had hired the Podesta Group to lobby for an end to sanctions...

Russia"s largest bank, Sberbank, has confirmed that it hired the consultancy of Tony Podesta, the elder brother of John Podesta who chaired Hillary Clinton"s presidential campaign, for lobbying its interests in the United States and proactively seeking the removal of various Obama-era sanctions, the press service of the Russian institution told TASS on Thursday.

"The New York office of Sberbank CIB indeed hired Podesta Group. Engagement of external consultants is part of standard business practices for us," Sberbank said.

Previously, The Daily Caller reported that Tony Podesta was proactively lobbying for cancellation of a range of anti-Russian sanctions against the banking sector. In particular, he represented interests of Sberbank and was paid $170,000 for his efforts over a six-month period last year to seek to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country.  Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying . His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

...

Regular readers will recall that the Sberbank-Podesta relationship goes back many years. Sberbank was the lead financial institution in the Russian deal to purchase Uranium One, owned by one of Bill Clinton’s closest friends, Frank Giustra. Giustra and Bill Clinton lead the Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership, an integral part of the Clinton Foundation.

Consider if any or all of the above had taken place among any of the Trump administration - what would have occurred? How villified would the offender have been? As Mike Krieger concludes, personally, I doubt any of the above is a huge deal, and I certainly don’t think Podesta is working for Vladimir Putin under the table. However, just imagine the hysteria if the above narrative could’ve been connected to anyone in Trump’s orbit. It would’ve been plastered on the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times with headlines like, “More Financial Ties Emerge Between Those in Trump’s Orbit and Putin.”

Naturally, you won’t see this story hyped because it doesn’t fit the corporate media narrative, and the narrative is all they care about.

Russia Conspiracy Theorists May Want To Take A Look At John Podesta

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Dot connectors, Twitter diagram creators and newly minted Russia-conspiracy sleuths from sea to shining sea take note.

Since anything connected to Russia is now considered treasonous, I’ve got a great story for you to sniff out.

It relates to John Podesta, but somehow I doubt you’ll be interested in this one…

The Daily Caller reports:

John Podesta, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 national campaign chairman, may have violated federal law by failing to disclose the receipt of 75,000 shares of stock from a Kremlin-financed company when he joined the Obama White House in 2014, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

Joule Unlimited Technologies — financed in part by a Russian firm —  originally awarded Podesta 100,000 shares of stock options when in 2010 he joined that board along with its Dutch-based entities: Joule Global Holdings, BV and the Stichting Joule Global Foundation.

When Podesta announced his departure from the Joule board in January 2014 to become President Obama’s special counsellor, the company officially issued him 75,000 common shares of stock.

The Schedule B section of the federal government’s form 278 which — requires financial disclosures for government officials — required Podesta to “report any purchase, sale or exchange by you, your spouse, or dependent children…of any property, stocks, bonds, commodity futures and other securities when the amount of the transaction exceeded $1,000.”

The same year Podesta joined Joule, the company agreed to accept 1-Billion-Rubles — or $35 million — from Rusnano, a state-run and financed Russian company with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

Anatoly Chubais, the company CEO and two other top Russian banking executives worked together with Podesta on the Joule boards. The board met six times a year.

Ron Hosko, a former FBI assistant director said because of the Kremlin backing, it was essential Podesta disclose the financial benefits he received from the company.

“I think in this case where you’re talking about foreign interests and foreign involvement, the collateral interest with these disclosure forms is put in the forefront of full disclosure of any foreign interest that you may have,” he told TheDCNF in an interview.

The existence of the 75,000 shares of Joule stock was first revealed by the Government Accountability Institute report issued last year.

But Podesta didn’t pocket all the shares. Correspondence from Podesta to Joule instructed the firm to transfer only 33,693 shares to Leonidio Holdings, a brand-new entity he incorporated only on December 20, 2013, about ten days before he entered the White House.

Leonidio is registered in Delaware as a limited liability corporation. Podesta listed the address of his daughter, Megan Rouse, in the incorporation papers. His mother and father also appear to be co-owners of Leonidio.

TheDCNF made multiple inquiries to OGE and received no reply. TheDCNF inquiries to Mr. Podesta were not returned.

Personally, I doubt any of the above is a huge deal, and I certainly don’t think Podesta is working for Vladimir Putin under the table. However, just imagine the hysteria if the above narrative could’ve been connected to anyone in Trump’s orbit. It would’ve been plastered on the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times with headlines like, “More Financial Ties Emerge Between Those in Trump’s Orbit and Putin.”

Naturally, you won’t see this story hyped because it doesn’t fit the corporate media narrative, and the narrative is all they care about.

New Study In D.C. Finds That New $15 Minimum Wage Could Cost 1,200 Jobs

Authored by Ted Goodman via The Daily Caller

A new study that analyzes the potential effects of a $15 minimum wage in the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.), found that an increase to $15 could cost 1,200 jobs.

The District of Columbia’s Office of Revenue Analysis released a report Thursday, asserting that 150,000 workers in the District would be affected by the higher minimum wage and as many as 1,200 jobs could be lost by 2020 due to the new policy.  Of course, nearly one-third of those jobs are in the food service industry where young people, already suffering from massive unemployment rates, represent a disproportionate percentage of the labor force. 

The study further states that as many as 2,000 jobs could succumb to the increased minimum wage by 2026.

The mayor’s “Fair Shot Minimum Wage Amendment Act,” stipulates that the minimum wage increases to $15 an hour by 2020, with incremental increases each year. The minimum wage is currently $11.50.

The findings revealed that nearly two-thirds of the pay increases will benefit non-D.C. residents who work in the District, but live elsewhere (likely Virginia or Maryland, which borders D.C.). While nearly two-thirds of the pay increases go to non-residents, D.C. residents will absorb 80 percent of the job losses.

“This study proves what we’ve known all along: this dramatic D.C. wage hike will hurt the most vulnerable in the District, costing them jobs and important economic opportunities,” Jeremy Adler, Communications Director for America Rising Squared, a conservative policy organization, told the Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF).

“D.C. must focus on creating more good-paying jobs for workers that need them the most and it’s clear an artificial minimum wage increase is the wrong approach to achieving this goal,” Adler continued.

The Obama administration proposed an increase to the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.00 an hour in 2013. The former president continued to call for an increase in the federal minimum wage throughout his presidency.

Seattle, Washington raised its minimum wage to $15 in 2014, followed by San Francisco and Los Angeles. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law a new $15 minimum wage for his state in 2016, and the University of California proposes to pay its low-wage employees $15.