Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), is calling on former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) to testify before Congress on her now-arrested, just-fired IT staffer.
McDaniel made the explosive demand in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News via phone on Wednesday afternoon, after news broke Tuesday night that Wasserman Schultz’s IT staffer for more than a decade was caught trying to flee the country by federal law enforcement agents after wiring hundreds of thousands of dollars to Pakistan.
“I think Congress needs to open an investigation into what this staffer had access to, to figure out what information he had on the hard drives he took a hammer to, why he was fleeing the country,” McDaniel told Breitbart News. “There are just so many questions with this individual and his family members who received over $4 million of taxpayer money between 2005 and 2009. We need to get to the bottom of it. It’s very sad that the mainstream media is not talking about this at all. It shows the bias.”
McDaniel specifically called on Wasserman Schultz to be willing to testify before a congressional committee on her knowledge of the matter. It’s unclear if the Florida congresswoman and former party chief—who stepped down at the Democratic National Convention last summer in Philadelphia amid leaks of DNC emails—would be willing to testify. Her spokesman David Damron has not responded to a request for comment when asked if she would be willing to cooperate with an investigation by Congress and testify before a panel about this matter.
“Debbie Wasserman Schultz absolutely needs to testify and explain why this individual was on taxpayer-funded payroll until yesterday, as he was fleeing the country, on top of the fact that they had removed his access to congressional computers in February,” McDaniel said. “So she knew he was under investigation, she knew something was wrong, and she kept him on payroll. So we need to figure out what she knew, why she was protecting this person, and figure out what he did with important government information.”
Federal agents picked up Imran Awan, the Pakistani-born IT vendor for Wasserman Schultz, at the airport attempting to flee the country on Tuesday night. He had just wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to Pakistan in his effort to escape scrutiny. He has been under investigation for some time. The staffer was on Wasserman Schultz’s payroll since 2004 until Tuesday night and was not fired until after he was arrested in an attempt to flee the country.
McDaniel is worried that Awan may have had access to information that not only put America’s national security at risk but may also be relevant to the Russia investigation—something Democrats are not cooperating with anymore.
“Well, first of all, Debbie Wasserman Schultz said when the DNC was hacked that she was going to have her IT guy come and look at what happened,” McDaniel told Breitbart News. “So, we need to figure out what access he had to the DNC servers, what access he had to her personal servers and computers, did she have separate devices for the DNC and her personal and her congressional? We need to have a full big picture as to what access this individual had not just to the congressional but also to the DNC servers.”
McDaniel is also worried about other Democrats—staffers and House and Senate members alike—with whom Awan may have been in contact. She’s calling on all of them to come forward and address this situation transparently now and testify before the relevant committees.
“They should testify to help clear all this up,” McDaniel said. “Let’s look at it, Matt. You have Jared Kushner putting out a statement two days ago and being transparent and compliant with the Senate investigation and the congressional investigation, with bipartisan congress members coming out and saying he did a great job being forthcoming. You have Don, Jr., saying he’s going to comply. You’re seeing Republicans from the Trump administration say ‘we’re going to work with Congress on every aspect of Russia collusion and get to the bottom of it.’ Then you have the Democrat party. They have not turned over their server. They have this individual now trying to flee the country who had access to we don’t know what, certainly the congressional servers and potentially the DNC information, and you don’t hear anything from the Democrat party. So which is it? Do they want to get to the bottom of what happened or do they only want to have a witch hunt against Republicans?”
McDaniel added that Democrats like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) should be concerned about these revelations and actually begin investigating them rather than spending all their time on television shows making political attacks against President Trump.
“The Democrats are obstructing at every turn,” McDaniel said. “Debbie Wasserman Schultz has obstructed at every turn and protected this staffer even to the point where she threatened a Capitol Hill police officer. There’s something that is curious about their behavior and we need to investigate it and figure out what is happening with the Democrat Party. What is interesting is you see Adam Schiff running for every TV camera—he has done 14 hours of interviews—why doesn’t he focus on his own party and get some answers from them with regards to what they knew with regards to the DNC hack and now this IT person working for Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz and see what access he had to those computers and that information?”