Report: Awan Brother Suspected of Stealing $120,000 in Equipment from Democrat Rep.

A Capitol Hill Police Officer stands guard on the steps of the US House of Representatives
Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images

Abid Awan — the Pakistani IT administrator accused of improperly accessing Congressional computer networks with brothers Imran and Jamal — is suspected of stealing thousands of dollars worth of equipment from a Democrat House member.

According to documents, Wendy Anderson, New York Democrat Rep. Yvette Clarke’s deputy chief of staff, discovered Abid Awan in December 2015 digging through the lawmaker’s office “with new iPods and other equipment strewn around the room.”

The aide immediately ordered Awan to leave the lawmaker’s office and would later tell investigators she believed the IT worker and Clarke’s chief of staff, Shelley Davis, plotted the heist together. In February 2016 — six months later after admitting her office could not account for $120,000 worth of equipment — the Congressional Black Caucus member terminated Abid Awan.

Independent investigators began probing the missing equipment, which included iPods and Apple TVs, before the IT worker’s departure. In the spring of 2016, Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko uncovered offices employing the IT worker possessed “financial anomalies.”

“Wendy was actually a truth-sayer, she wanted the right things to happen, enforce rules, and Yvette Clarke did not,” a Hill staffer told TheDCNF.

“She knew it was obviously stolen … What business case would they have had for iPods? … He’s a shared employee, basically a contractor. Why would he be camped out … in her personal office?”

After catching Awan in her boss’s office, Anderson was appointed Clarke’s chief of staff and promptly began pouring over the office’s financial records. She soon noticed “abnormal quantities of equipment, much with seemingly dubious business value,” according to reports.

Anderson reportedly believed Davis and Awan were conspicuously close, prompting her to comb through emails between the two.

“She’d been going through old email and could see that it basically smacked of [Abid] was ordering stuff for Shelley and there was no business reason.”

“She said to Abid, ‘I want to do an inventory of the office,’ and he couldn’t come up with $120,000 [in equipment], so he said, ‘Oh I don’t know, people lost it,” an unnamed source told TheDCNF

After being fired from Clarke’s office, Reps. Darren Soto (D-FL), Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) hired Abid Awan.

The IT staffer, whose family was barred from Capitol Hill’s computer network in February of 2017, has not been charged over the suspect theft.

“The only reason you’re not seeing charges is because the Democrats who employed him are not cooperating,” a top Republican aide said.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.