DEM CHIEF OF STAFF TRIED TO EXPOSE SUSPECTED THEFT RING ON CAPITOL HILL, WAS MET WITH RESISTANCE

Weird how many House Democrats are willing to cover for these guys.

• A top aide to Democrat Rep. Yvette Clarke told Capitol Hill investigators she believed the New York congresswoman’s chief of staff, Shelley Davis, was working with IT aide Abid Awan to steal equipment from the congressional office.
• Clarke “wrote off” one-tenth of her annual budget after $120,000 in equipment could not be located.
• She did not mention it publicly and waited to fire Abid until House officials approached her about it months later. Davis no longer works there, but has not been arrested.

Rep. Yvette Clarke’s deputy chief of staff came into the office on a Saturday in December 2015 and caught the New York Democrat’s part-time IT aide, Abid Awan, rummaging through the congresswoman’s work area with new iPods and other equipment strewn around the room, according to a House document and interviews with Hill staff.

Wendy Anderson told Abid to get out of the office, the document said. She told Capitol Hill investigators that she soon suspected Clarke’s chief of staff, Shelley Davis, was working with Abid on a theft scheme, multiple House staffers with knowledge of the situation told The Daily Caller News Foundation. They also said that Anderson pushed for Abid’s firing.

But Clarke did not fire Abid until six months after the congresswoman formally acknowledged that $120,000 in equipment was missing, records show — not until after House investigators independently announced a review that would potentially catch financial discrepancies. Even then, Anderson told investigators she believed another top staffer in Clarke’s office was subverting their efforts, a House staffer with knowledge of the investigation said.

Four months later, Anderson took a job with another congressional office. Clarke’s office declined to say under what terms she left.

Abid — known in the office as Omar — and his brothers, fellow IT workers Imran Awan and Jamal Awan, are suspected of making “unauthorized access” to congressional servers during the 2016 election and of running a theft scheme, according to the House Inspector General (IG). Together, the family had access to all the emails and files of 1 in 5 House Democrats.

Members like Clarke have refused to discuss the case. The New York congresswoman, meanwhile, has described Donald Trump’s presidency as the product of an “illegally hacked, illegitimate election.”

House Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko testified in a public hearing in April that “the House IG discovered evidence of procurement fraud and irregularities [and] numerous violations of House security policies” by the Awans. The alleged procurement fraud included submitting suspicious invoices to bill equipment to House offices.