Please don’t mistake my next statement for hyperbole. The number of real, bona fide national security-related scandals that go underreported or unreported is astounding.
The message passed down from producers to mainstream media talent, with a couple exceptions, is mind-numbingly clear.
“Trump, Trump, Trump! Russia, Russia, Russia! Putin, Putin, Putin! Syria, Syria, Syria! Racist, Racist Racist!”, Repeat.
Stray from this chorus, and – well, just don’t stray from the chorus if you want to remain employed by the likes of MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, etc. The rules at these networks don’t only dictate what to say. Even more compulsory are the decrees regarding which stories are not to be reported on or spoken of.
We wouldn’t want to upset the corporate handlers and politically-inclined fundraisers, would we?
Not that Brian Stelter would ever have the inclination to report on any story illuminating a legitimate threat to national security or the integrity of elections, Putin’s tactical Twitter offensive excluded. Stelter and his ilk know their rabid, aberrant congregation too well to stray from any reporting that would a) serve as exculpatory evidence in the public trial of Donald Trump, b) result in the public being any more enlightened or intellectually equipped than before they were prior to viewing, or c) shed light on wrongdoing by a Democrat or their operatives.
With “hard-hitting” mainstream stories centered primarily around the misrepresentation and de-contextualization of statements, or the implication that the President might have beaten his wife to a pulp, we have to forgive the media for ignoring the latest development in the sordid story of Imran Awan. In case you’ve been tuned into CNN, Awan is the a Pakistani national and the former IT guy for Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other Democrats.
Here’s the backstory, in a nutshell:
‘Upon Wasserman Schultz’s election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2005, she hired Imran Awan to run IT for her. Over the years, Awan would come to work for as many as 30 Democratic senators, gaining access to the information stored on computers and their classified correspondences as a result.’ (TrigTent)
And what did Imran Awan and his associates do with this unfettered access?
“Then there’s evidence that (Awan) dumped off all this information they had access to into a third database, which is now being called a breach,” Lt. Col. Shaffer told Laura Ingraham. “It looks like a foreign intelligence service may be the recipient of all this. Something called the Muslim Brotherhood.”
It’s been asserted that Awan was the source of some of the emails from the DNC servers which were eventually published on WikiLeaks. This inconvenient truth serves as one of the many holes in the narrative that remote Russian hackers intentionally siphoned and published emails to damage the Clinton campaign.
Awan’s suspected treason, as well as alleged bank fraud, triggered a criminal investigation, but Debbie Wasserman Schultz kept him on her payroll until it was optically impossible to do so any longer; when he was arrested at Dulles Airport attempting to flee the country, having wired $283,000 – $165,000 of which was on loan from the Congressional Federal Credit Union – to Pakistan.
Naturally, there was no peep of this bombshell story in the left-allied mainstream. Now, there’s a critical update to the saga, and you better bet that it will be eschewed in favor of reports on the President’s latest homophobic, xenophobic, racist, sexist, bilateral-quadropheliac-phobic comments, whenever they inevitably come. Ironically, it’s the President himself who’s taken to conducting some Twitter-reporting to ensure the public knows of, or doesn’t forget, about the existence of Imran Awan as an employee of a high-ranking Democratic operative.
“Our Justice Department must not let Awan & Debbie Wasserman Schultz off the hook,” Trump tweeted. “The Democrat I.T. scandal is a key to much of the corruption we see today. They want to make a ‘plea deal’ to hide what is on their Server. Where is Server? Really bad!” (Fox News)
Though it’s suspected that Awan may have been party to a Democrat-ordered breach of data from the DNC servers, the plea deal is ironically part of a far lesser charge. He and his wife face allegations they engaged in a conspiracy to obtain home equity lines of credit from the Congressional Federal Credit Union by giving false information about two properties.
Bank fraud? Who cares?
The President is right.
People want to get to the bottom of what work Imran Awan did with respect to DNCand Congressional severs. And, for that matter, to determine once and for all the extent of Russian meddling in the email leaks and elections.
With this in mind, a plea deal for Awan is inexplicable and unacceptable. How could a prosecutor not leverage what seems like a slam-dunk guilty plea in the bank fraud case for information pertaining to Awan’s likely-nefarious time working for Democratic politicians?
Debbie Wasserman Schultz was the chairwoman of the DNC when the rigging of the primary in favor of Hillary Clinton was under way. She recommended Awan to other Democrats in the House, who eventually fired him, but only after he were formally barred from accessing House servers when it was found he possessed a secret server of his own to which he was transferring sensitive information.
It seems likely that Wasserman Schultz wanted complete control over House Democrats’ information, and that Awan was the point man for achieving that end. Even if it meant Awan transferring much of that information – likely used by Debbie Wasserman Schultz to insulate Hillary Clinton and the DNC from Democratic competition – to members of the Muslim Brotherhood, it was worth it.
This scenario of events explains why Wasserman Schultz kept the Pakistani IT whiz on her payroll, long after the other House Democrats who employed Awan at one time or another had fired him. It’s an inexplicable degree of “loyalty” for anybody who doesn’t have something to hide, and therefore something to gain by paying off a person, Awan, with too much knowledge.
This is the real foreign collusion scandal, and you won’t hear about it on any – well, maybe one – of the major networks.
Awan and his wife will strike a plea deal. After months of delays during which closed door meetings were conducted and deals were struck, Debbie Wasserman Schultz has to be very happy. It appears that her Pakistani ride-or-die will be let off the hook, and the bank fraud charges will not result in further inquiry into Awan’s role in the halls DNC or Congress. Details about his secret servers, penchant for disregarding security protocol, and $4 million in signed checks courtesy of House Democrats will remain confidential information.
For now.
Keep in mind, it may be another six-plus years before President Trump is out of office, and retired from his role as boss of the Attorney General, incompetent as the current one is. If there’s one thing we – even Debbie Wasserman Schultz – can all agree on about Donald Trump, it’s that he doesn’t forget his slights, and he’s not a man known to give up on his grievances easily.
