Democratic Congressman Conyers "Retires, Not Resigns" As Sexual Misconduct Allegations Build

Careful to explain to those that care, Michigan Democrat Congressman John Conyers says he will "retire" from Congress today, and is "not resigning," following a growing list of sexual misconduct allegations. Conyers is endorsing his son, John Conyers III, to replace him in Congress.

“He is not resigning. He is going to retire,” Ian Conyers told the newspaper. “His doctor advised him that the rigor of another campaign would be too much for him just in terms of his health.”

Conyers, 88, is the longest serving House member and was one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have both said Conyers should step aside in light of the sexual misconduct allegations leveled against him. Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the assistant Democratic leader who is also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) with Conyers, has also said the Michigan lawmaker should resign.

As a reminder, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi had encouraged the House Ethics Cmte to "proceed expeditiously" as it investigates accusations against Conyers.

The review began after reports Conyers reached a $27k settlement with a former aide who said she was fired for rejecting his sexual advances; since then, Conyers has been accused of harassment by other women.

Conyers has acknowledged the settlement but denied sexual harassment claims.

Conyers concluded:

“My legacy will continue through my children."

We are not so sure about that Mr. Conyers, we suspect your families legacy will be tarnished with your alleged actions.

As The Hill reports,Ian Conyers, who also serves as a Michigan state senator, also told the Times that he plans to run for John Conyers"s seat in Michigan"s 13th Congressional District.

“I’m absolutely going to file for his seat. The work of our congressional district, where I come out of, has to continue,” Ian Conyers said.

 

“We have got to have someone who has depth and experience but also historical understanding of what it takes to fight this type of evil in Washington.”

In the interview, the state senator refused to defend the alleged actions of his great uncle.

“I stand with my uncle in terms of his belief of no specific wrongdoing,” Ian Conyers told the newspaper. “However, those things need to have their day in court.”

Lyndon Johnson"s Terrible Legacy

Authored by Patrick Barron via The Mises Institute,

Recently my wife and I spent a morning at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. The damage done by this big bully is incalculable. His library reminds us of the start of the blizzard of government expansion during Johnson"s presidential term, which lasted from the Kennedy assassination in October 1963 to his decision not to run for a full second term in 1968, which usually is attributed to his failure to end the war in Vietnam.

Johnson was an admirer of FDR and was determined to revive and complete what he believed should have been integral parts to FDR"s New Deal. Johnson called his program The Great Society.

As if ignorance of the consequences of this socialist expansion of domestic control by government was not enough, LBJ expanded the war in Vietnam, promising America both Guns and Butter. Even today we live with this expansion of government domestic programs and seemingly never-ending wars as the modern Welfare/Warfare state.

The Johnson Treatment

I called Johnson a big bully in the paragraph above. I believe my assessment is justified by what actually is celebrated at his presidential library. The displays proudly explain and document "the Johnson touch" in print, photograph, and actual recorded telephone interviews. Johnson was a big man who towered over most people. He had a habit of getting very close to someone, leaning over at the waist, and forcing his partner in conversation to bend over backwards to avoid an uncomfortable encounter with LBJ"s face. There is a large picture of Johnson giving Supreme Court Associate Justice Abe Fortas this "Johnson Treatment", literally face-to-face. Fortas, who was a long time LBJ supporter, appears to be taking the "Treatment" in good humor, but it is easy to see how it would be almost impossible to keep one"s dignity with the president of the United States performing this obviously uncomfortable act.

Surprisingly the JBJ Library celebrates the Johnson Treatment with recorded phone conversations. One conversation was with powerful US Senator Richard Russell, a long time LBJ colleague. Johnson wanted Russell as his personal eyes and ears on the Warren Commission, tasked with investigating the Kennedy assassination. In the recorded phone conversation we hear Russell politely tell LBJ that he is honored but that he has no respect for Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and must decline the offer. LBJ then badgers and bullies Russell into accepting the position. He says that he wants Russell to ensure that the commission does not investigate whether the Russians or Cubans had any role in the assassination. Russell"s vociferous objection in writing to the Warren Commission"s "single bullet" theory seemed to justify his opinion of Warren and the commission. The commission"s staffers jumped through rhetorical hoops to claim that the report had the unanimous approval of all members.

That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen

The library is full of typical memorabilia. The entrance has a huge display of pens with which Johnson signed hundreds of pieces of mostly domestic legislation. For example, Johnson authored and signed sixty pieces of legislation that effectively federalized education. Of course, the library is full of specious statistics that attempt to "prove" that all this legislation was effective, citing, for example, that the poverty rate decreased and that the percentage of Americans with college degrees increased. Even if one accepts such "facts" at face value, an Austrian economist would point out that all such so-called advances came at the cost of diverting resources from other, more highly sought preferences. Education is an economic good, as is healthcare, retirement savings, food, etc. If Americans valued higher education so much, they would have applied more of their limited resources to this end. The LBJ library ignores the cost, including the social cost, of all these programs and gives the impression that government supplied goods and services could be provided without any change in the nation"s production of other goods and services. Thus, the famous "Guns and Butter" claim that we can have it all...a claim that survives to this day.

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the LBJ years is that his Guns and Butter policies put the US on a path that ended the gold exchange standard, agreed upon at Bretton Woods in 1944, by which the US pledged to honor central bank dollar convertibility to gold at thirty-five dollars per ounce. In the 1950"s Eisenhower"s budget deficits were very modest and he actually balanced the budget for a short time. But Johnson"s Guns and Butter policy caused huge deficits and prompted unprecedented money printing by the Fed. The Austrian economists in Charles de Gaulle"s France understood the consequences--that the US did not actually have enough gold to honor central bank redemptions at thirty-five dollars per ounce--and began a run on the US gold supply that eventually drove the US off the gold standard in 1971. (Let me make it clear...the French did NOT cause the run on the US gold supply. The Fed caused the run by printing dollars to pay for LBJ"s Guns and Butter policy.)

Vietnam Exposed the Limits of the Johnson Touch

The LBJ library openly shows us that Johnson never had a method for winning the war in Vietnam or extricating the US from what became known as a quagmire. In another telephone recording from early in his administration library visitors hear LBJ tell a partisan that he doesn"t know how to win or how to bring the troops home honorably. That is a very bitter revelation to someone who had comrades in arms who died in Vietnam and others who endured captivity in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton". Repeatedly Johnson tried to get the North Vietnamese to a peace conference. This is pure LBJ hubris, convinced that everything is negotiable and that he can use the famous Johnson Touch on Ho Chi Minh. His pathetic bombing pauses to signal our desire to negotiate merely convinced the North Vietnamese that American involvement eventually would end.

What Have We Learned?

Apparently, not much. Today Johnson"s Guns and Butter policy is alive and well. Few, if any, Great Society programs have been repealed. The federal government continues to wage war in faraway places and promises ever more goods and services, funded by fiat money set free from any semblance of a gold standard. There is no talk of eliminating any domestic programs or ending any of our wars. On the contrary our government seems determined to provoke new wars in Korea and possibly with Iran and even Russia. The legacy debt for all the federal government"s programs--i.e., the unfunded obligations emanating from the government"s entitlement programs — has been calculated to be well over a hundred trillion dollars. It is clear that it can be paid only nominally and not with money of even today"s reduced purchasing power. So, was LBJ"s presidency a success? Unfortunately for America, LBJ would say yes!

Donna Brazile Says Clinton Campaign Officials Made Her Feel Like "Patsey The Slave"

The Democratic Party"s nominal support for "identity politics" has once again been exposed as little more than hollow virtue-signaling...

By now, it’s become clear that the Democratic party establishment installed Donna Brazile has the head of the DNC expecting her to be an obedient stooge who would turn a blind eye to the endemic corruption and mismanagement inside America’s oldest major political party. Unfortunately for them, Brazile had no intention of keeping quiet when she discovered that Obama’s negligence had left the party in debt, effectively allowing the Clinton to play a deciding role in doling out resources, setting strategy and myriad other issues.

A year after Trump’s upset victory over Clinton poleaxed the Washington establishment and smug Democratic elitists who felt it was their candidate’s god-given right to effortlessly slide into office despite being one of the most unpopular major-party candidates in recent memory, Brazile is speaking out in a new book, excerpts from which have been published in Politico and the Washington Post.

In one detail printed today by WaPo, Brazile recounts how Clinton’s top aides repeatedly disrespected and demeaned her, which she equated to being treated like a slave.

Brazile alleges that Clinton’s top aides routinely disrespected her and put the DNC on a “starvation diet,” depriving it of funding for voter turnout operations.

 

As one of her party’s most prominent black strategists, Brazile also recounts fiery disagreements with Clinton’s staffers — including a conference call in which she told three senior campaign officials, Charlie Baker, Marlon

 

Marshall and Dennis Cheng, that she was being treated like a slave.

 

“I’m not Patsey the slave,” Brazile recalls telling them, a reference to the character played by Lupita Nyong’o in the film, “12 Years a Slave.” “Y’all keep whipping me and whipping me and you never give me any money or any way to do my damn job. I am not going to be your whipping girl!”

Over the past two days, Brazile has revealed how former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz effectively ceded control of the party to the Clinton campaign, which looted funds from state party organizations and restricted the money flowing into the DNC after agreeing to pay off most of its debt.

She also revealed that she considered replacing Clinton with Joe Biden after she collapsed during a ceremony at the 9/11 memorial. But most shockingly of all, she said that she feared for her life after the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, which she feared may have been planned by nefarious elements from within the party.

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?

Fox Airs Allegations That Awans Aided Wasserman-Schultz With Voice Altered Phone Calls

By Elizabeth Vos of Disobedient Media

Lt. Colonel Tony Schaffer alleged on Fox News that the Awan brothers may have aided Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in making bizarre, voice modulated phone calls to the offices of attorneys currently pursuing a litigating a class action lawsuit against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the DNC. If substantiated, the claims may have significance for the DNC fraud lawsuit proceedings, and add to the growing controversy surrounding the recent arrest of Imran Awan on bank fraud charges.

Jared Beck, and attorney litigating the DNC Fraud Lawsuit noted on Twitter:

Disobedient Media‘s previous coverage of the DNC fraud lawsuit discussed ominous phone calls received by the Becks’ offices. The individual called the Becks using a voice modulator with a caller ID corresponding to the Aventura offices of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The Becks referral to the ominous phone calls  to the D.C. Capital police is potentially extremely significant in terms of both the DNC fraud lawsuit and the degree to which Imran Awan may have engaged in potentially illegal activity while serving in his role as an IT staffer. This came after a string of concerning events surround the suit which eventually resulted in the Becks unsuccessfully seeking legal protection for themselves and others involved in the suit. The the former DNC chairwoman’s representatives denied the call had been made by Schultz or an associated party.

Lt. Colonel Tony Shaffer appeared on Fox New’s Tucker Carlson where he made allegations that Imran Awan had helped Schultz make the disturbing phone call to the Beck’s legal offices. Schaffer also discussed concerns regarding sensitive information that the Awans were privy to during their employment by the DNC. In discussing the Becks, Schaffer commented that Schultz had employed the brothers to do “hideous things behind the scenes… they helped her make voice change calls…” Schaffer added that the sensitive information the Awans had access to were stored in a third database, which he said is now being called a “breach.”

If it is confirmed that the Awans helped Schultz contact the law offices of the Becks, this could have significant implications for the DNC Fraud lawsuit. Unsolicited contact from Schultz to the Becks would be highly improper. Such phone calls were one in a string of apparently threatening conduct by Schultz and her associated. The former DNC chair was reported to have threatened the U.S. Capital chief of police with “consequences” in a heated exchange after he refused to surrender a laptop seized from Imran Awan.

Disobedient Media previously discussed concerns that the Awans may have leaked sensitive data related to their service for Schultz and the DNC. Schaffer alleged that a “foreign intelligence service” may have been the recipient of the leaked information, referring specifically to the Muslim Brotherhood, which he speculated was what had prompted FBI involvement in the case beyond the initial wire fraud charges.

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.

The Real Reason Hillary Lost: Black People Just Don't Like Her

Back in September 2016 we noted that unprecedented black voter turnout was a huge component of Obama"s victories in both 2008 and 2012.  After running in the low-to-mid 50% range for decades, black voter participation surged to over 60% for Obama in 2008 and 2012, the highest levels ever recorded.

As we noted then, the key question for Hillary in 2016 was whether she should expect the same level of unprecedented black voter turnout that Obama was able to garner in his two elections?  Now, courtesy of new 2016 voter data published today by the U.S. Census Bureau, we now know definitively that the answer to that question is a resounding "NO".

After surging to 62% in 2012, an all-time record high, Black voter turnout once again dipped back to its historical range in 2016 with only 56% of Black voters turning up to support Hillary.  Just doing some simple math, there are roughly 245 million voting age people in the United States and just over 13% of them, or 32.5 million, are Black.  Therefore, a 6% decline in turnout equates to roughly 2 million votes, the overwhelming majority of which would have undoubtedly gone to Hillary.

Of course, despite the "Russian Hacking" blame game still being played by Clinton, as we noted back in September she and her team were acutely aware of their small "enthusiasm" issue among African American voters.

 And, at least according to the president of the Democratic African-American Women Caucus, this math has the Clinton campaign in "full panic mode."  Per Politico:

"Hillary Clinton"s campaign is in panic mode. Full panic mode," said Leslie Wimes, a South Florida-based president of the Democratic African-American Women Caucus.

"They have a big problem because they thought Obama and Michelle saying, "Hey, go vote for Hillary" would do it. But it"s not enough," Wimes said, explaining that too much of the black vote in Florida is anti-Trump, rather than pro-Clinton. "In the end, we don"t vote against somebody. We vote for somebody."

Meanwhile, the lack of excitement is "worrying" Henry Crespo, president of the Miami-based Florida Democratic Black Caucus, who said that “No one is writing songs for Hillary. Obama had will.i.am. Hillary has nobody.”

That said, it wasn"t just Black voters who decided not to show up for Hillary...Female voters stayed home too...

...as did Obama"s trusty millennials...

Yeah, but Russia.

Biden: Hillary Failed Because She Ignored The Middle Class

Is Joe Biden an "agent of Putin"? Given his not-unusual foot-in-mouth-frankness at an eent Thursday night, one might think The Democrats will be calling for a probe of his connections to Russia soon...

As CNN reports, former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday indirectly knocked Hillary Clinton"s failed 2016 campaign at a Thursday event, suggesting that the former secretary of state failed to talk to middle-class voters.

"What happened was that this was the first campaign that I can recall where my party did not talk about what it always stood for -- and that was how to maintain a burgeoning middle class," Biden said during an appearance at the University of Pennsylvania.

"You didn"t hear a single solitary sentence in the last campaign about that guy working on the assembly line making $60,000 bucks a year and a wife making $32,000 as a hostess in restaurant."

"And they are making $90,000 and they have two kids and they can"t make it and they are scared, they are frightened."

Despite calling half the nation "deplorable" and beyond help, Clinton did attempt to speak to working class voters on the campaign trail, including through multiple bus trips through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. But the overarching message of her campaign, especially at the end, (and The Democrats since), was more often anti-Donald Trump than policy messaging toward these voters.

House Democrats Delayed Dismissal Of IT Staff 'Hackers' Because They Were Muslim American

A month ago, three Muslim American brothers who managed office IT were barred from congressional computers (on suspicion that they accessed computers without permission). While many congressmen immediately relieved them of their duties, two House Democrats decided to delay the firing (until today) because their Muslim background, some with ties to Pakistan, could make them easy targets for false charges.

Imran Awan seen below with Bill Clinton

As we previously reported, the three brothers (Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan) who managed office IT for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other lawmakers  were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives Thursday, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.

Three members of the intelligence panel and five members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs were among the dozens of members who employed the suspects on a shared basis. The two committees deal with many of the nation’s most sensitive issues, information and documents, including those related to the war on terrorism.

The brothers are suspected of serious violations, including accessing members’ computer networks without their knowledge and stealing equipment from Congress.

The three men are “shared employees,” meaning they are hired by multiple offices, which split their salaries and use them as needed for IT services. It is up to each member to fire them from working...

While many congressmen did fire them immediately (and barred them from congressional systems), Politico reports that, one month after being barred from congressional systems, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) have finally fired the IT staff...

Meeks said he isn’t convinced Alvi and Imran Awan, both of whom worked in his office at different times, are involved in the alleged procurement scam but that Alvi was dismissed because the investigation was interrupting the day-to-day functions of his office.

“As of right now, I don’t see a smoking gun,” Meeks said. “I have seen no evidence that they were doing anything that was nefarious.”

Meeks said he was hesitant to believe the accusations against Alvi, Imran Awan and the three other staffers, saying their background as Muslim Americans, some with ties to Pakistan, could make them easy targets for false charges.

“I wanted to be sure individuals are not being singled out because of their nationalities or their religion. We want to make sure everybody is entitled to due process,” Meeks said.

“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.”

Fudge told Politico on Tuesday she would employ Imran Awan until he received “due process.”

“He needs to have a hearing. Due process is very simple. You don’t fire someone until you talk to them,” Fudge said.

On Wednesday, Lauren Williams, a spokeswoman for Fudge, wouldn’t provide details about Imran Awan’s firing but did confirm he was still employed in Fudge’s office as of Tuesday afternoon.

The bottom line is simple - these House Democrats decided it was better to be at risk of hacking and extortion than to be accused of racism.

And just for good measure, Politico reports that Awan has long-standing relationships with Meeks, Wasserman Schultz and Fudge. Meeks was one of the first lawmakers Awan worked for after coming to Capitol Hill in 2004. He joined Wasserman Schultz’s office in 2005 and started working for Fudge in 2008. In addition, Meeks and, to a larger extent, Wasserman Schultz, are said to have a friendly personal relationship with Awan and his wife, according to multiple sources. Awan made nearly $2 million since starting as an IT support staffer for House Democrats in 2004, according to public salary data. Alvi, who worked for House Democrats beginning in 2007, earned more than $1.3 million as an IT staffer during that time.