It has been a while since anyone has done an update on the Awan brothers spy scandal in Congress, so I thought I would attempt to sort it out as to what we know as of today. There are so many unanswered questions and much of the information has been suppressed by the authorities, so what we do know as of now is still sketchy.

Alligator Ed did a number of excellent essays on the scandal with great documentation in each of his essays. You can read some of them here, and here, and here, and here.

One of the problems in following the Awan brothers spy scandal is that every time we think we know where it is going, it takes an additional turn. It is like a labyrinth with many twists and turns and occasionally a dead end or two. We do not even know who the Awans are actually spying for at this point in the investigation. Add to that, the stonewalling by the Democrats in Congress, by governmental law enforcement officials, and by the US Attorney's office of the District of Columbia, which has made verifiable information very scarce. However, if the Awans were actually spying for a foreign entity, this has the potential to be the single greatest scandal in Washington, far eclipsing Watergate. The problem is finding enough untainted or uncompromised people in Washington to bring all the information on this story out into the sunlight.

Here are the major players in the scandal. Imran Awan, a Pakistani born IT specialist who has worked for at least 80 different Congress persons since around 2005 and who is considered to leader of the spy ring. In addition to Imran Awan, there is Hina Alvi, his wife; Abid Awan, his brother and Abid's Russian wife Natalia Sova; Jamal Awan, another brother of Imran Awan; and Rao Abbas, Imran Awan's close friend who is also from Pakistan. So far, none of these persons has been charged with any crimes except Imran and his wife Hina Alvi have been charged with bank fraud.

Among the Congress persons that the Awans worked for were Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Gregory Meeks, Andre Carson, Yvette Clarke, and Xavier Becerra. Some of these Representatives have already played a key role in attempting to hide or thwart the investigation into the Awan spy ring. Alligator Ed has previously covered some of the information about roles that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Gregory Meeks have played in this scandal. What is very curious is how no Democratic representative has commented on the Awan case and most act as if they never heard of it. The question is why are the Democrats avoiding this scandal and the Republicans are barely cognizant of it? Imran Awan had top security clearance and was the IT person for several members who served on House Foreign Affairs or Homeland Security committees. This alone should warrant concern by the members of Congress.

So far the best coverage of this scandal has been by George Webb, a gadfly video reporter and investigator who literally walks the streets testing his theories as to what is going on. He documents his work on YouTube videos that he uploads several times a day. In the written media, Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller has been doggedly following this story, often dovetailing his articles with new information that George Webb has uncovered. Both George Webb and Luke Rosiak have been widely criticized for their work on the Awan brothers case. Webb for his methodology in which he develops a working theory as the basis for conducting his investigation and Rosiak for publishing what many are calling "conspiracy theory." However, they are far ahead of the main stream media which seems to want to suppress this story.

I am linking two separate timelines with embeds and links to sources for those who wish to explore this criminal scandal further at this point in time.

The first link is to a timeline site posted at Medium.com. This site was compiled from multiple sources and is continuously updated as new information becomes available. The site gives a running narrative in chronological order and then provides a listing of links separately.

The second timeline which I am linking is based upon George Webb's Youtube posts. It is more detailed than the first timeline and all the materials are embedded within the timeline. I have not studied and compared both timelines, but on the surface, they appear to agree with one another on the major points.

Meanwhile the mainstream media has avoided this story for months. For example, the Washington Post has ignored this story even though it is occurring in their own back yard. Finally the WaPo was forced to address it by publishing a recent puff piece on Imran Awan discrediting the idea that he was a spy, complete with a GQ photograph of the handsome Pakistani. This paragraph is just an example of how the WaPo has tried to down play this story.

Yet, according to a senior congressional official familiar with the probe, criminal investigators have found no evidence that the IT workers had any connection to a foreign government. Investigators looking for clues about espionage instead found that the workers were using one congressional server as if it were their home computer, storing personal information such as children’s homework and family photos, the official said.

(my bolding added)

The claim made by the Democrats in the WaPo article prompted an immediate response article by Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller which quickly debunked the idea of the information being the Awan children's homework. I highly recommend everyone read Rosiak's entire article.

Democratic congressional aides made unauthorized access to a House server 5,400 times and funneled “massive” amounts of data off of it. But there’s nothing to see here, Democrats told The Washington Post: They were just storing and then re-downloading homework assignments for Imran Awan’s elementary-school aged kids and family pictures.

To demonstrate just how much information was being downloaded from the House server, Rosiak goes on to write that it was in the terabytes range of data.

A terabyte is a million megabytes; a terabit is about one-tenth of that. Awan’s three children are in elementary school or younger. A book report in Word document format could clock in at under a megabyte, even if it were 100 pages long. To fill a terabyte with family photos, a person would need 250,000 photos.

The investigation into the Awans began in 2016 and a grand jury was convened in November 2016 which indicted Imran Awan and Hina Alvi on four counts of bank fraud. The indictments were surpressed for several months during which time it was believed that someone in Congress alerted Awan of the pending indictments. Shortly after the grand jury handed down the indictments, Imran Awan and his wife began liquidating all their business holdings and other assets such as houses they owned and wiring the proceeds to Pakistan.

Hina Alvi abruptly left the country in early March along with their three children. She was stopped at the airport by FBI and Capitol Police and despite carrying $12,400 in cash, more than allowed by law, she was allowed to leave the country. Later on July 24, Imran Awan was arrested at the Dulles airport as he tried to flee the country.

Awan was arrested in July at Dulles International Airport as he tried to flee the country, and federal officials stopped Alvi at Dulles in March. Despite the fact she had a bag of $12,400 in cash on her, authorities allowed her to board and leave the country to Qatar, according to a U.S. District Court Document.

Immediately after his arrest, Imran Awan retained Chris Gowan as his attorney. Gowan is very close to the Clintons, having served in Bill Clinton's administration and later as Bill Clinton's personal attorney. He also worked on Hillary Clinton's 2008 Presidential campaign. Meanwhile Hina Alvi has been working on a deal in which she will agree to return to the United States in return for some form of immunity.

On a personal note, I am very leery of immunity deals after what the FBI did with all the Clinton people in the email scandal where no one got charged. Not even Huma Abedin who clearly violated the terms of her immunity deal and she still walked.

Update: This just came across my Twitter feed. The corruption runs very deep and across party lines. If you go to the video, the pertinent conversation begins shortly after the 2:30 mark.

Bombshell: Insider Drops Bomb on AG Jeff Sessions - He Refuses to Prosecute Obama and Clinton Crimes (Video) https://t.co/NcjaOr3TnA

— Charles Ortel (@CharlesOrtel) October 1, 2017

Jason Chaffetz is singing now that he is out of Congress. This one surprised me.