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Speaker 1: Hi, this is newt twenty twenty is going to be

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Speaker 1: thirty first. An unfairly discharged marine with a dark secret

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Speaker 1: Collusion a novel by Nuke Ingrich, available on Amazon dot

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Speaker 1: Com and Audible now on the second episode of News World,

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Speaker 1: I think this is probably the biggest congressional scandal going

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Speaker 1: back thirty forty fifty years. We don't know how bad

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Speaker 1: this scandal really was and may still be. A member

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Speaker 1: of Congress has the ability to hire anyone they want

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Speaker 1: to be on their staff. If a member of Congress

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Speaker 1: says I trust this person, I know this person, they

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Speaker 1: can opt out of doing a background check. He must

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Speaker 1: have thought, if this scandal came out involving forty or

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Speaker 1: more Democrat a Congress, that not mean we would lose

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Speaker 1: the majority. This is a story about a computer hack

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Speaker 1: on the House of Representatives. It involves an IT guy

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Speaker 1: who was born in Pakistan named Imran ah Wan. We're

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Speaker 1: digging into the case of Imrana Wan, an information technology

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Speaker 1: specialist and shared employee in the US House of Representatives.

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Speaker 1: The story begins in two thousand and four when a

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Speaker 1: wand becomes employed by members of Congress to service their

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Speaker 1: information technology needs for their offices over time, he builds

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Speaker 1: a rapport and gains more clients based on word of

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Speaker 1: mouth recommendations. At one point, he's working for forty members

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Speaker 1: of Congress as a shared staff information technology employee and

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Speaker 1: billing over one hundred thousand dollars a year to multiple

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Speaker 1: offices for his services. He even hires his family members,

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Speaker 1: who have little to no IT experience, to work with him. Then,

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Speaker 1: on February third, twenty seventeen, the Chief Administrative Officer of

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Speaker 1: the House Representatives, together with the Sargeant at Arms, issue

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Speaker 1: a memo with the subject quote revoking it and physical

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Speaker 1: access for identified shared employees close quote with the time

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Speaker 1: frame of urgent. The memo lists the following five employees

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Speaker 1: Marababas na Alvi, Imaranawan, Jomalawan, abid Omar. Upon receipt of

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Speaker 1: this urgent memo, most members of Congress took steps to

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Speaker 1: release Imran Ahwan and his family members from their positions

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Speaker 1: effective immediately. Something in their actions had caused House leadership

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Speaker 1: to become concerned, but little was known about what had

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Speaker 1: happened at the time. The story you're going to hear

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Speaker 1: today is that of one of the biggest cover ups

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Speaker 1: in Congress in many years. It is the story of

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Speaker 1: a young man who, through his relationship with members of

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Speaker 1: the House, takes advantage of his access to congressional servers.

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Speaker 1: Some have accused the one of causing a hack from

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Speaker 1: within the house. Others say nothing happened. Which side will

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Speaker 1: you believe. I'm joined today by my guests Luke Rosiak,

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Speaker 1: an investigative reporter from The Daily Caller whose new book,

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Speaker 1: Obstruction of Justice is available at bookstores now, Patrick Salers,

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Speaker 1: a former I specialist who worked in the US House

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Speaker 1: Representatives at the same time as I Ranawan, and Congressman

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Speaker 1: Louis Gohmert of Texas, who was one of the early

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Speaker 1: voices in Congress to follow the evidence and ask tough

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Speaker 1: questions about what had really happened. First joining me is

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Speaker 1: Luke Rosiak. Luke, you've been doggedly investigating and reporting on

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Speaker 1: the story for two years. Tell us what you've uncovered.

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Speaker 1: This is a story about a computer hack on the

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Speaker 1: house of Rapper Presentitives. It involves an it guy named

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Speaker 1: im Ron Juan say. Im Ron Juan is a guy

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Speaker 1: who comes over from Pakistan at the age of seventeen

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Speaker 1: under the versity lottery, and of course this whole family

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Speaker 1: follows under chain migration. And as I learned what happened,

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Speaker 1: and I was really one of the only reporters who

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Speaker 1: noticed this little press release that occurred during the inauguration

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Speaker 1: of Trump, and I followed the trail back to a

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Speaker 1: hack during the twenty sixteen election that none of us

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Speaker 1: really heard about, and it really exposed the ongoing tremendous

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Speaker 1: vulnerability of Congress to cyber threats and blackmail that could

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Speaker 1: very well be going on to this day. How does

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Speaker 1: he make a transition to being the it guy in

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Speaker 1: the US House. He puts himself through community college in

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Speaker 1: Northern Virginia and then through Johns Hopkins. And while he's

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Speaker 1: finishing up at Johns Hopkins University with a degree in IT,

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Speaker 1: he starts working as a contractor for a company in

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Speaker 1: the House of Representatives, but Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida

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Speaker 1: hires him. I Arnuwan winds up cutting out the middleman

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Speaker 1: and starting working for this congressman directly, no no contractor relationship.

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Speaker 1: And after that, the members of Congress, in particularly Robert Wexler,

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Speaker 1: really protective of this guy. They really took him round

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Speaker 1: under their wing, and so these early Congressman Robert Wexler

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Speaker 1: of Florida, Javier Biserra of California, and our attorney general,

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Speaker 1: you know, Gregory Meeks New York. What they would do

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Speaker 1: is im Arnuwan cobbled together a salary working for several

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Speaker 1: members on a part time basis, and eventually he started

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Speaker 1: earning as much as a congressman. These employers they would

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Speaker 1: encourage new congressman, newly elected freshman to put this guy

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Speaker 1: on their payroll. And when he couldn't make any more

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Speaker 1: money on the under the House rules, they started attributing

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Speaker 1: the paychecks to his relatives. So you saw his brother

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Speaker 1: and his younger brother who was only twenty years old. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean the under the rules of the House, you

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Speaker 1: can have shared employees. It happens all the time. And

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Speaker 1: a member or can decide with two or three other

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Speaker 1: members to achieve something less for example, to do research,

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Speaker 1: or two represent a particular issue, or in this case,

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Speaker 1: he had information technology assistance. Part of what makes the

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Speaker 1: one case amazing is ultimately I think there are forty

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Speaker 1: members who are involved in this. Now that that's a

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Speaker 1: number that is I've never seen before in this kind

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Speaker 1: of a shared relationship. When you get to that level,

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Speaker 1: it's pretty clear that a substantial number of them have

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Speaker 1: no idea what he's doing, that it's not a big

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Speaker 1: enough part of their operation, and just they sort of

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Speaker 1: forget about it. And so he's there drawing the money,

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Speaker 1: supposedly doing the job, and presumably he did do the job.

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Speaker 1: The question was what else he was doing with the

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Speaker 1: level of access he had to forty different members A

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Speaker 1: given congressional office really isn't that big, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about like fifteen staff at the budget of

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Speaker 1: a round a million dollars a year, and you don't

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Speaker 1: really need a full time IT guy to administer a

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Speaker 1: staff of fifteen. And so they share. I mean, from

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Speaker 1: their standpoint, they notly got the lottery in terms of

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Speaker 1: being able to immigrate United States, they then hit the

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Speaker 1: lottery in terms of being able to exploit the US government.

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Speaker 1: The problem is they were putting, by all appearances, no

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Speaker 1: show staff on the payroll to circumvent the rules. And

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Speaker 1: so there were disclosures that were telling the members that

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Speaker 1: this guy was making as much as the chief of

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Speaker 1: staff or as much as congressmen themselves. And then they

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Speaker 1: could also really see that all of his relatives were

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Speaker 1: on the payroll, and so what starts to emerge is,

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Speaker 1: you know, a ghost employee scheme is what they call it.

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Speaker 1: But there were also more than enough red flags and

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Speaker 1: disclosures that were made to congressmen, and just a lot

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Speaker 1: of people knew that what was going on here was

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Speaker 1: totally abonwormally and the end of the day, this one

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Speaker 1: family took seven million dollars supposedly for administering service, but

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Speaker 1: most of them didn't even have any background in computers.

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Speaker 1: I think we will surprise people is in your reporting

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Speaker 1: you gradually discovered that there's an entire family network. Can

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Speaker 1: you describe how them run ultimately engaged his entire family

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Speaker 1: to live off the US taxpayer. Basically, Imron was the

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Speaker 1: one with it skills, and he was the one doing

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Speaker 1: most of the work. But he made it so that

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Speaker 1: members of Congress put his relatives on the payroll even

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Speaker 1: though they never saw those people. So you have his

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Speaker 1: brother abide, who you know, just had a high school degree.

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Speaker 1: You have his other brother who is only twenty years old,

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Speaker 1: making one hundred and sixty five thousand dollars a year.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's the only twenty year old in Congress

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Speaker 1: who's making one sixty five k year, and he isn't

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Speaker 1: one of them actually a McDonald's employee. Now Raoul Abbus

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Speaker 1: works at McDonald's. He's got nothing to do with technology.

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Speaker 1: That's against the rules on the part of the member.

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Speaker 1: And members of Congress individually hired each of these each

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Speaker 1: of these people, and almost none of them had any

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Speaker 1: background in it. And so it's a ghost employee scandal,

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Speaker 1: a seven million dollars one. And so part of what

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Speaker 1: people need to realize is that members of Congress, in theory,

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Speaker 1: are legally responsible. We're having signed a document which was

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Speaker 1: actually a federal money. If it's false, it says I

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Speaker 1: have hired this person who's done this job. Therefore they're

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Speaker 1: getting this money as a method of protective So theoretically

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Speaker 1: you start with a level of defense of the individual congressman,

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Speaker 1: none of whom were sanctioned in any way. After seven

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Speaker 1: million dollars. What we had was when they were buying

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Speaker 1: computer equipment, they would change the prices so that everything

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Speaker 1: costs or was reported as costing four hundred and ninety

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Speaker 1: nine dollars, which was just underneath the threshold in theory.

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Speaker 1: One of the protections of the system is if you

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Speaker 1: buy something above five hundred dollars, it shows up initially,

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Speaker 1: it gets reviewed. You know what it is. It has

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Speaker 1: some kind of identity number. And what they were doing

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Speaker 1: was deliberately gaming the system by coming in just below

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Speaker 1: the level of which would be noticed. But didn't they

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Speaker 1: in one case come in like for eight hundred items. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was like hundreds of items and hundreds of thousands

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Speaker 1: of dollars. Said, by changing the invoices and falsifying fouchers,

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Speaker 1: falsifying federal documents, they made so that everything showed up

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Speaker 1: as being less than five hundred bucks, and therefore it

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Speaker 1: didn't have a bar code and it wasn't tracked. Didn't

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Speaker 1: you report the one office actually, just in one office

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Speaker 1: at fifteen thousand dollars in equipment missing. Vette Clark, congresswoman

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Speaker 1: from Brooklyn, she had a tenth of her annual budget

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Speaker 1: go missing. That's one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. These

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Speaker 1: offices have a budget around one point two million year.

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Speaker 1: One hundred and twenty thousand dollars went missing worth of

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Speaker 1: technology equipment. And this is like big screen TVs, like

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Speaker 1: sixty eight inch big screen TVs, that have just walked off.

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Speaker 1: The idea that one hundred and twenty thousand dollars walked

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Speaker 1: off is completely insane. And so we're following the clues

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Speaker 1: from the seven million dollar financial scheme to this systematic

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Speaker 1: falsification in the House and then we get to the hack.

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Speaker 1: And so this came to light from several strong women

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Speaker 1: who were buying large Democrats and who had the courage

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Speaker 1: to kind of stand up and tell the truth when

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Speaker 1: no one else did. Wendy Anderson, who worked for Evett Clark,

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Speaker 1: the congressman from Brooklyn, and she was the deputy chief

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Speaker 1: of STAF. She concluded that the chief of staff was

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Speaker 1: conspiring with a b to one, the it guy's brother,

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Speaker 1: to steal all this equipment. And she said so and

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Speaker 1: what happened then Evette Clark tried to make the problem

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Speaker 1: go away. Actually, you know, the chief of staff, a

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Speaker 1: guy named Shelley Davis, who was implicated by his own

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Speaker 1: deputy as you know, being a thief. And next thing

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Speaker 1: you know, he's out on the street. He's not working

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Speaker 1: there anymore. But she doesn't really say anything public about it.

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Speaker 1: I am as disappointed in the Republican leadership of the

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Speaker 1: House as the Democrat, because this wasn't I mean obvious

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Speaker 1: things are you know, It's like having a large buffalo

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Speaker 1: run through your office and ignoring it. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: number of things going on here that with any reasonable

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Speaker 1: serious attention to the public trusts and the public good

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Speaker 1: would have led to the sayety of investigations. Absolutely. And

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Speaker 1: when this deputy chief of staff, this courageous whistleblower working

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Speaker 1: for a Democratic Congressman, Evett Clark, when she comes forward,

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Speaker 1: and when they uncover all these invoices that are systematically falsified,

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Speaker 1: the Inspector General of the House Representatives gets involved. The

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Speaker 1: IG happens to be someone with a tremendous cybersecurity background,

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Speaker 1: and she says, all right, well, we definitely got these

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Speaker 1: guys on fraud because the invoices are falsified. And there's

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Speaker 1: been a lot of talk later, oh, the FBI is involved.

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Speaker 1: We're investigating for two years. Think about this. You've got

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Speaker 1: this financial document you're submitting in the House and it

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Speaker 1: says that a two thousand dollars computer costs four hundred

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Speaker 1: and ninety nine dollars. That's fraud. So the IG says,

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Speaker 1: you know, we got fraud, but these guys, are it guys? Obviously,

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Speaker 1: The much more frightening thing here is the potential that

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Speaker 1: they abuse. There the access that they had now as

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Speaker 1: systems administrators, they could read and even modify any file

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Speaker 1: that the members of Congress they worked for or their

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Speaker 1: staffs had anywhere on their servers or hard drives, any email,

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Speaker 1: they could even send emails as a member of Congress,

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Speaker 1: So there was just a tremendous potential for harm here.

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Speaker 1: Ghost employees are nothing new in the house, and that's

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Speaker 1: happened off and on probably the whole history of the house,

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Speaker 1: but it is illegal and the creativity of this group

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Speaker 1: in the sheer number of ghost employees. And a ghost

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Speaker 1: employee essentially there's a person who's being paid but isn't

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Speaker 1: showing up and so in effect there's no real person there,

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Speaker 1: which is why they're called a ghost. But in this

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Speaker 1: case you have a very sophisticated effort to maximize the

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Speaker 1: money by having an entire family network engaged. Can you

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Speaker 1: just explore for a minute how they were setting this up.

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Speaker 1: They would typically get the members of Congress to put

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Speaker 1: Immaradawan on their payroll for like five hundred bucks or

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Speaker 1: something really really small. And that was enough to create

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Speaker 1: a log in for him so he could do all

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Speaker 1: the work. But then he would get the member of

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Speaker 1: Congress to put someone else on and they basically got

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Speaker 1: complete control of the House's HR system. I mean, Immaradawan

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Speaker 1: can strut into that office at any time and he'll

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Speaker 1: be in the gressman's office for an hour. How does

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Speaker 1: an it guy get to be so important? He somehow

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Speaker 1: had the ability to convince members of Congress to put

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Speaker 1: all these people on their payroll, and so they admitted later, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, Congressman Emmanuel Clever admitted on audio, I don't

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Speaker 1: know this guy that works at McDonald's, im Ron Uwan

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Speaker 1: does all the work. And so that's against the House

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Speaker 1: rules because im Ron Juan wasn't on his payroll. And

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Speaker 1: so it's especially funny because you know, kind of big

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Speaker 1: picture here, you hacking is a huge deal and needs

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Speaker 1: to be taken seriously. But the problem is, at the

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Speaker 1: same time, they had this extremely extremely cavalier at best,

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Speaker 1: you know, approach to cybersecurity in the House. And this

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Speaker 1: went on for a decade where they're giving all full

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Speaker 1: access to their computers to people with no training in cybersecurity.

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Speaker 1: The policies existed. You know that you've got to give

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Speaker 1: in a background check to it, guys, And every one

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Speaker 1: of these members of Congress who hired im ron Uwan

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Speaker 1: and his family, they exempted them correctly if I'm wrong.

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Speaker 1: What we know is he gets people to hire his family.

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Speaker 1: People pay no attention to them because they trust them,

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Speaker 1: and they then branch out from just stealing money on

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Speaker 1: ghost employees into stealing money on technology at that and

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Speaker 1: then they may or may not have gone into hacking.

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Speaker 1: The Democrats don't want to expose it because they have

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Speaker 1: forty members involved. The Republicans for some reason or comatose.

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Speaker 1: It's almost like a Russian novel. I mean, you have

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Speaker 1: this thin thread of honest people, among whom are the

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Speaker 1: Inspector General, surrounded by people who are methodically avoiding discovering

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Speaker 1: the truth and then using their institutional authority to say,

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Speaker 1: since we can't discover the truth, there mustn't be any truth,

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Speaker 1: because we're the FBI and you should trust us. What

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Speaker 1: I want to move to is you've got these guys

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Speaker 1: who've been hired as ghost employees. They've now learned how

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Speaker 1: to steal technology money and ironically, as the Democratic National

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Speaker 1: Committee is being hacked. The chair of the Democratic National

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Speaker 1: Committee is probably the strongest defender of Imron in the House.

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Speaker 1: And would you talk about her relationship? How that this

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Speaker 1: also this play itself would be a novel. So this

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Speaker 1: started way back in two thousand and four and im

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Speaker 1: Ronawan made inroads through the Florida delegation Robert Wexler, who's

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Speaker 1: no longer in office, and then he very quickly jumped

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Speaker 1: over to then newly elected Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and

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Speaker 1: from then on she was kind of one of his

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Speaker 1: biggest defenders, probably the biggest advocate. Wassman Schultz really really

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Speaker 1: takes the sky under under her wing and forcefully encourages

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Speaker 1: newly elected freshman as she ascends into the ranks and

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Speaker 1: becomes eventual chairman of the DNC. When you're a freshman

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Speaker 1: and you're kind of a backbench guy who's new to Washington,

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Speaker 1: she says, look, just put this guy in your payroll.

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Speaker 1: Just do it. And they do. And so that's one

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Speaker 1: of the ways that he helps get this seven million dollars.

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Speaker 1: I w Wasserman Schultz of Florida, Congresswoman head of the

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Speaker 1: Democratic National Committee. The Democratic Nation movie is about to

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Speaker 1: be hacked. She trusts total totally run on one and

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Speaker 1: his family and is protecting them, and then she gets

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Speaker 1: involved in this thing, right, And so the stuff about

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Speaker 1: the theft started coming up in late twenty fifteen, really

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Speaker 1: early twenty sixteen. By March of April twenty sixteen, they

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Speaker 1: had an inspector in general investigation going on into the theft,

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Speaker 1: and they very quickly found that these guys, the whole family,

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Speaker 1: was logging into members emails accounts, using members of Congresses

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Speaker 1: personal email addresses, and credentials and passports. But they were

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Speaker 1: even logging into members of Congress that they didn't work for.

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Speaker 1: And so they were logging in to members who had

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Speaker 1: previously fired them, And obviously I thought of retaliation. Are

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Speaker 1: they mad they got fired? They why would you log

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Speaker 1: into someone who fired you? Why would you log in? Later?

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Speaker 1: A lot of very very suspicious behavior like that, and

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Speaker 1: they were doing high tech stuff that made it hard

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Speaker 1: to track, very deliberately taking steps to conceal what they

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Speaker 1: were doing on the House servers. And now the biggest

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Speaker 1: epicenter of the hack, as the ig and identified, was

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Speaker 1: a group called the House Democratic Caucus, that's the organizational

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Speaker 1: body of the Democrats in the House, so that theoretically

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Speaker 1: all the Democrats belong to it, but they have their

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Speaker 1: own office with their own infrastructure, and in this case

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Speaker 1: the chairman of it was Javier Basra, So it's got

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Speaker 1: its own server and that was they logged into that

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Speaker 1: server like six thousand times within a few months, way

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Speaker 1: more than you would ever normally do. And they were

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Speaker 1: funneling data off the House network too, so the IG

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Speaker 1: do we know where the files went to. So one

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Speaker 1: of the things they were doing is they had Dropbox

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Speaker 1: and so that was uploading it to the cloud. And

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Speaker 1: at that point the files were it was an unofficial

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Speaker 1: Dropbox account that was controlled, you know, by Imranawan. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't something the House could shut down because the House

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Speaker 1: doesn't let you use Dropbox. So that was one way

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Speaker 1: that they saw these files going off. So de W.

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Speaker 1: Wassman Schultz, which most people know as the chairman of

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Speaker 1: the DNC win it was hacked. Im Aranawan was working

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Speaker 1: as her it guy in Congress since way back when

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Speaker 1: she was just like a backbench member, and he kind

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Speaker 1: of rose up along with her, and by the time

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Speaker 1: that she was chairman of the DNC in twenty sixteen.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't working for the DNC, but if you searched

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Speaker 1: his name on Wiki leagues, you can see that he was,

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Speaker 1: you know, talking with the DNCS. He basically had the

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Speaker 1: password to Debbie Washman Schultz's iPad and the DNC would

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Speaker 1: call him up if they needed access. He had more

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Speaker 1: access to Washman Schultz's stuff than anyone else. But he

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Speaker 1: worked for the House. And so we're talking about really

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Speaker 1: two separate things here. There's the DNC hack and then

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Speaker 1: there's this other hack in the House. They were detected

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Speaker 1: at virtually the exact same time. So it's in June

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Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen when Wiki leakus hacks releases the first

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Speaker 1: emails from the DNC. Three days later, the Inspector General

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Speaker 1: for the House of Representatives goes to the leadership Paul

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Speaker 1: Ryan and Nancy Pelosi and says, I've uncovered a hack

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Speaker 1: in the House of Representatives. It's a really, really serious

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Speaker 1: has all the markings of nefarious acting actions and the

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Speaker 1: one doing it was the it aid for Debbie Wassman Schultz. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Inspector General has told the Republican Speaker of the House

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Speaker 1: and the Democratic lue of the House. What happens. Democrats

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Speaker 1: tried to act like they had never really heard of

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Speaker 1: any of this and they didn't really know what any

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Speaker 1: of it was. That's not what the case was. I mean.

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Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi's general counsel guy named Bernie Ramos screamed at

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Speaker 1: the IG and said, you're not the policeman of the world.

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Speaker 1: You're not going to investigate this stuff. You're not so

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Speaker 1: much as to talk to any of these guys. You

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Speaker 1: can't talk to any of the members, you can't look

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Speaker 1: at their emails, and you can't look at the data

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Speaker 1: that was flying off the network. And he was really

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Speaker 1: really worked up about it. But they actively retaliated against

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Speaker 1: screamed at and blocked the Inspector General, who was originally

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Speaker 1: appointed by Nancy Pelosi and then later on Paul Ryan

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Speaker 1: kept her own because she was so good at her job.

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Speaker 1: And eventually what this culminated in is an operative for

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Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi falsely accused the IG of ethics violations and

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Speaker 1: drove her out of the House. The Inspector General actually

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Speaker 1: a spurt in cyber activities, and the Capitol Police said

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Speaker 1: no one who was an expert, and so the leadership

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Speaker 1: of the House, for some bizarre reason which we don't

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Speaker 1: understand today, moves the authority for the investigation away from

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Speaker 1: the woman who had done the work to the Capitol Police,

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Speaker 1: who couldn't possibly do the work right. So the Inspector

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Speaker 1: General and her whole team, who's you know, their mission

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Speaker 1: is to do exactly this kind of thing. She is

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Speaker 1: the chairman of the International Cybersecurity Experts Association, Like, you

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Speaker 1: can't get any better cybersecurity investigator credentials than this woman had.

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Speaker 1: And so for no reason, after she's trying to do

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Speaker 1: her investigation, after Nancy Polessi's people screaming her and block her,

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Speaker 1: you know, basically frame her on ethics charges, they take

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Speaker 1: the investigation away from her and they give it to

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Speaker 1: the Capitol Police and say, that's kind of the slight

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Speaker 1: of hand here is that law enforcement should have meant

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Speaker 1: the ig working with the prosecutors like they've done in

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Speaker 1: so many previous cases. You can have the FBI involved,

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Speaker 1: but instead the Capital Police is controlled by House leadership

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Speaker 1: and its mission is to protect Congress. Then let me

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Speaker 1: point out that somebody who helped develop the Inspector General's role,

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Speaker 1: they are a branch of investigation. I mean with the

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Speaker 1: inspector General's job and every single federal agency is to

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Speaker 1: have the authority to dig out things which seem to

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Speaker 1: be potentially criminal and then to turn them over to

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Speaker 1: the Justice Department for prosecution if they find enough evidence.

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Speaker 1: I expect the Democrats to defend themselves, but the degree

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Speaker 1: to which the Republicans were apparently totally asleep or willfully asleep,

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Speaker 1: or head amnesia or something is amazing to me. And

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Speaker 1: this is a good example. What we're talking about is

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Speaker 1: whether or not secrets are being hacked in a way

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Speaker 1: which is a threat to national security or for that matter,

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Speaker 1: just theft. They say, well, we're not going to look

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Speaker 1: at the data. We know that data, and the presentation

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Speaker 1: actually says it has sensitive file names. They let her

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Speaker 1: look at the file names, but not see what's in

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Speaker 1: the file. And so an example of a fire that

431
00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:03,360
Speaker 1: was being taken off the network illegally, our in violation

432
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:06,680
Speaker 1: of policy at least was credentials, and it's not credible

433
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 1: that anyone would have had that reaction. I believe that

434
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: there's a remarkable story that's mostly covered up. When he's

435
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 1: banned from Congress and he's still sneaking around though with

436
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:20,000
Speaker 1: de Wie Washman Schultz's laptop, he's still got a backdoor

437
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: into the House computer network. Meanwhile, everyone on Capitol Hill

438
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:28,440
Speaker 1: knew that the things that were going on were completely abnormal.

439
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 1: So when these guys are banned from the network, they

440
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:34,920
Speaker 1: bring in the House provides free it guys to all

441
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: the affected members, and DeBie Washman Schultz refuses to accept

442
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 1: this free service even though cost her money. She won't

443
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:43,400
Speaker 1: let an outsider come look at what's on our network,

444
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,159
Speaker 1: and in Ronjuana is still on her payroll even though

445
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:48,879
Speaker 1: his band. You know, they're just tasked with fixing it,

446
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:51,320
Speaker 1: getting things back into compliance with the House rules. And

447
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 1: that's that no documentation, and so they never had anyone

448
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,880
Speaker 1: come in and doing audit. So ultimately the whole thing

449
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 1: breaks down and him run is indicted for bank fraud

450
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: and how does that then that only goes to court.

451
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: You know, they knew about this since July of twenty sixteen.

452
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 1: A year later, in July of twenty seventeen, he tries

453
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: to go to Pakistan with nine thousand bucks in his

454
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:20,679
Speaker 1: suitcase and he's arrested by the FBI dollars airport, So

455
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:22,440
Speaker 1: At that point, I said, all right, I've been selling

456
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:24,200
Speaker 1: everyone this for six months. He's going to be charged

457
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: with hacking Congress and running up a kermit scamp. He

458
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,200
Speaker 1: was in charged with that. He was charged with wiring

459
00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollars to Pakistan, which actually went to

460
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 1: a Pakistani police officer. And so what happened is he

461
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 1: went into the Congressional Federal Credit Union and told him

462
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:41,639
Speaker 1: that he added his dad died and he had a

463
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:43,880
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollar funeral and he needed to wire

464
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: money over to Pakistan and to do that, they committed

465
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: mortgage fraud. And so they got him for this small

466
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: little thing. And even then I said, all right, it's

467
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,200
Speaker 1: how they got al capone or whatever. You know. They

468
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:55,679
Speaker 1: often used pretextual charges to hold you for a minute

469
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: while they continue to do the other investigation. So they

470
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 1: charged him with this little mortgage fought. Another year goes by,

471
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:04,640
Speaker 1: they keep delaying the court hearings. It's all very secretive.

472
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: Nothing occurs in open court. They're trying to resolve this case,

473
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 1: the serious charges, the ones of all the stuff we've

474
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 1: been talking about behind the scenes with the plea deal,

475
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 1: and the DJ never charges him Ronowan with any of

476
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: this stuff, despite all the evidence we've talked about. But

477
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 1: yet they give him everything they have. Now, under the

478
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: legal process, if you're charged with something, the prosecutors have

479
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 1: to give you evidence you need to defend yourself. But

480
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: he was never charged with the stuff, and yet they

481
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: gave him everything, even though discovery didn't apply. And so

482
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:36,880
Speaker 1: you know, a year goes by, there's all these things

483
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:40,120
Speaker 1: that are amply documented in ways that are really incontrovertible,

484
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: and he's never charged, and it becomes clear that they

485
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:46,680
Speaker 1: don't want to take this case to trial. They never

486
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: really interview anyone. His lawyer negotiates a deal. The deal

487
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: doesn't just eliminate everything that mattered except one case of

488
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 1: false representation on home equity. But the deal goes on

489
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 1: to say in paragraph eight, the government quote, the government

490
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:07,200
Speaker 1: has uncovered no evidence that your client violated federal law

491
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: with respect to the house computer systems. Now, this is

492
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 1: clearly a negotiated deal between the defense attorney and the

493
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 1: Justice Department, despite all of the evidence that we've seen.

494
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,439
Speaker 1: And he's then sentenced to time served in three months

495
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 1: of supervised probation. This is a case study in corruption.

496
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:30,679
Speaker 1: So you've given us a story that runs over ten years,

497
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 1: involves millions of dollars, forty members of Congress, the Democratic

498
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: National Committee chair, and it automately comes down to one

499
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: count of home equity line credit application falsification and a

500
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: three months supervised probation. This is a case study in

501
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: corruption and a case study in the kind of scandal

502
00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: that frankly, every citizen ought to be very bothered by.

503
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: Because if the Congress can be penetrated by people at

504
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: the level of information technology that we're seeing here combined

505
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: with the level of financial corruptions it's the duality, then

506
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 1: I think that there's a genuine threat to the entire system.

507
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,120
Speaker 1: When we come back, I'll be joined by Patrick Sowers,

508
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 1: a former IT specialist in the US House Representatives. He'll

509
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 1: give us an insider's perspective on the job. Im Rono

510
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 1: one hilled. My next guest is Patrick Sowers. If you

511
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: don't mind, Patrick, please introduce yourself in what your role

512
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 1: was in the House. Hello, my name is Patrick Sowers.

513
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:53,600
Speaker 1: I worked on the Hill as an IT specialist for

514
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: fourteen years a couple of different capacities. I was there

515
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:58,719
Speaker 1: as a contractor, I was there as a staff member.

516
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: I started on the Hill in two thou and four.

517
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: After a few months, I became a shared staffer. Worked

518
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: for probably twenty five different members in my tenure there.

519
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 1: Am ron Awan was also a shared employee. He worked

520
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: mostly on the Democrat side and saw him at meetings

521
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: and whatever the House required us to get together for education.

522
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 1: So describe for me a bit more about how shared

523
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: staffing works. The shared staffing program is actually an excellent idea.

524
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: What it does is it gives members of Congress and

525
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: access to a professional IT person at a fraction of

526
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: the cost. Generally, offices would have to have assistance administer

527
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: in the office and it was hey, who wants the job,

528
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: And instead of doing that, they actually get an IT

529
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 1: professional That I professional because he works from multiple offices,

530
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 1: is able to make a good income a living while

531
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: serving different offices. So it's kind of a win win

532
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 1: situation for both sides. Please explain for our listeners how

533
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: individual congressman can hire you in order to defer cost

534
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 1: a member of Congress. As a program, there's generally only

535
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: two types of shared employees. Your finance person who handles

536
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: your accounting for your office and your systems administration There's

537
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: also some times where legislative staff will work across a

538
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: committee or several different offices to share share the burden

539
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: of that expense to the member, and there's no one

540
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: on the Hill that dictates which one of these options

541
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: a member of Congress decides on. The House It Department

542
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: HIR sets up the rules, regulations from requirements, but a

543
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: Member of Congress is free to hire anyone he wants

544
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: to be on his staff. Explain to me what the

545
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: HIR role is in Congress? What do they task with?

546
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: HIR is the House IT Department. They manage the infrastructure

547
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: for Capitol Hill, so the email systems. They currently do

548
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 1: all of the data backup and those functionalities for the

549
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 1: office where if we go back fifteen years ago, offices

550
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: had servers in their each individual office and then they

551
00:30:57,320 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: had to have someone to maintain that. In order to

552
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 1: save cause, the House I T Department brought that together

553
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 1: into a one storage system and it's divided out and

554
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 1: secured for each individual office. They provide They provide a

555
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 1: high level support for offices. They have a TSR Technical

556
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: Support representatives that they provide to each Member of Congress.

557
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: But they can't get in and do the day to

558
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: day work in the office. It's the staffing would have

559
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: to be too high. You need that personal attention. And

560
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: that's why the shared employee program is actually a good

561
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 1: thing because it's a trusted member, someone the member puts

562
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 1: their trust end. Sometimes it's a good person, and if

563
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 1: we're starting to learn, sometimes it's not always a good person.

564
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 1: But that gives the member the ability to hire someone

565
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: that they have authority over. If they relied strictly on

566
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: hir the House It Department to bude them services, there's

567
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 1: no one advocating for what the member needs to the House.

568
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: So you're told what programs you have access to, you're

569
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:02,160
Speaker 1: told that what systems are broken. And if you don't

570
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 1: have an IT person who has their vested interest in

571
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 1: you instead of the overall hill, it doesn't provide you

572
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: the protection that you need. So give us an example,

573
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: how would a newly sworn in congressman or congresswoman who

574
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:18,479
Speaker 1: doesn't know systems are going to need how would you

575
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 1: come in and interact with them? Generally, as shared systems

576
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: administrator gets introduced to new members by the members they're

577
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: currently working for. If you're on their team and they

578
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 1: trust you, they know that they can recommend you to

579
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: the freshmen from their state or their delegation to get

580
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: a good service. Someone they can trust. Now, I was,

581
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: you know, I did the job for almost fourteen years

582
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:41,960
Speaker 1: on the hill, so I knew the ins and outs

583
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: of all the softwares, all of the services that you needed,

584
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 1: even what cell phones work best in what parts of

585
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: the city and what parts of the country. Became my

586
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 1: responsibility as a shared systems person. So you'd make recommendations

587
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 1: on software, on decisions on it, policies and use. For

588
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: staff in the office, you know what they can and

589
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 1: can't do. The House has rules, but then the member

590
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 1: wants to go above and beyond that. One of the

591
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: you know, the biggest things we advise them on is

592
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 1: their email communication. A member's email is protected by Congressional

593
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: privilege as long as they use their official email. Well,

594
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: if you're communicating on a Gmail system or another public system,

595
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: now those are affoiable documents that could actually be called

596
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: in for her testimony, But the congressional emails are protected.

597
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 1: Congressional email is protected under the congressional privilege. It seems

598
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,960
Speaker 1: like they have several securities in place, and the environment

599
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 1: and in which we live today, where every single thing

600
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: we even my microwave at home, is connected to the internet.

601
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 1: So in an environment like that, hir has a mountain

602
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 1: to climb, and they do a good job climbing that

603
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 1: in most cases. In the fourteen years I was there,

604
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 1: I don't think I disagreed with them on very many

605
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 1: things that they did. In a security standpoint, they do

606
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: a good job of addressing that. But there's you know,

607
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: there's holes in every system and it's their job to

608
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: identify those as quickly as possible. So the other interesting

609
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: aspect of this story that's perplexing is the whole combining

610
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:12,279
Speaker 1: of invoices, the fact that Imranawan ordered approximately twenty eight

611
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: thousand dollars worth of equipment and put them all in

612
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:17,800
Speaker 1: at four hundred and ninety nine dollars so they wouldn't

613
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:21,880
Speaker 1: be tracked. Can you explain the whole process of equipment ordering,

614
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 1: the financial threshold and the tracking. The house has a

615
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: purchasing department and a member office submits their purchase orders

616
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 1: to that department and they're followed. Last I checked, the

617
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 1: cap was four ninety nine. That it didn't have to

618
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 1: be listed on your inventory, so you could order. You know,

619
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 1: an iPad, a camera, cell phones usually fell into that category.

620
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 1: A monitor. Back in the day they used to track

621
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 1: every single monitor, well, monitor almost disposable. Now you can

622
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 1: get a very nice monitor for one hundred dollars. So

623
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 1: it's now, you know, items like that that it is

624
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: just not worth the time and effort to track those

625
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 1: small items are supposed to fall into that four ninety

626
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: nine threshold. Anything above that has to go through have

627
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:09,719
Speaker 1: a house asset tag put on it and as inventoried,

628
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,839
Speaker 1: and the member is actually responsible for that equipment until

629
00:35:13,880 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 1: it's disposed of. And your fourteen years of experience, were

630
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: you ever asked to make sure purchase orders for items

631
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 1: like iPads or phones came in at or below four

632
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 1: hundred ninety nine dollars because a member of Congress or

633
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 1: their staff requested not once, literally not once. It was

634
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: easier for us as administrators to buy small items when

635
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:37,719
Speaker 1: they were less than So if an item was you know,

636
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 1: five hundred and two dollars, we went back to the

637
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: vendor and said, hey, can we get it for four

638
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 1: ninety nine because it just made our jobs easier. We

639
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: could actually order it without going through the procurement process.

640
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:53,840
Speaker 1: But items that were computers, valued copiers, things like that. No,

641
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,399
Speaker 1: they had to go through the procurement process and there

642
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: was never a fudging of numbers to make that work.

643
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: And how time consuming is the procurement process. It's a

644
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: little time consuming. As we all know, government has red

645
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 1: tape and there are folks there that have a job

646
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 1: to do. You have to go out and get a

647
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,280
Speaker 1: quote for the item, which is always a best practice.

648
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 1: We generally get two or three quotes until you get

649
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 1: some vendors that you can trust, and then you have

650
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 1: to take that, provide a purchase order, submit that purchase

651
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:21,879
Speaker 1: order comes back, and then you have to go through

652
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: asset tagging things after that. So it's it's not a

653
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: cumbersome process, but it is a little time consuming. And

654
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,840
Speaker 1: you know, if you have an immediate need, having that

655
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 1: threshold is great. If something breaks, a monitor breaks, and

656
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:36,240
Speaker 1: you have a user who just can't use their computer

657
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: without a monitor, it's great to be able to have

658
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: a local vendor get that item quick and replace it.

659
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: One of the interesting facts of the m run A

660
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: one story is the pulling together of items for a

661
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 1: massive procurement of twenty eight thousand dollars explain to me

662
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: how in your experience, in order that large didn't have

663
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: to go through the procurement process. You could buy several

664
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: items under the four ninety nine category, but if one

665
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: single item went over four nine, then it had to

666
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: go to the perment process. So, as a member of Congress,

667
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 1: I could buy fifty iPads at four hundred ninety nine dollars.

668
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: You could buy fifty iPads at four ninety nine, but

669
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: that would have to be signed off by the chief

670
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: of staff. You can't just place that order. The chief

671
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 1: of staff for each office has to approve. There has

672
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: to be a member's signature on every purchase. So in

673
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: these allegations against the one, the chiefs of staff of

674
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 1: these individual congressional offices were signing off on these purchase

675
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 1: orders or invoices. According to House rules, they needed to

676
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:35,360
Speaker 1: be signed off by the member. The chief of staff

677
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 1: generally has the ability to to make that decision in signature,

678
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: but every order that goes through, every purchase is approved

679
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: by the office. So it's not possible for someone to

680
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: go out and spend twenty eight thousand dollars on equipment

681
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 1: and the office not know about it. It hits their budget.

682
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 1: It's reviewed by at a minimum, their financial person and

683
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:55,879
Speaker 1: their chief of staff is reviewing that budget as every

684
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:59,760
Speaker 1: item comes through. And can congressional offices combine their orders

685
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: absolutely not. Each individual member has their own budget. They

686
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:06,879
Speaker 1: placed their own orders for their own equipment. Okay, So,

687
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:09,959
Speaker 1: knowing what we know now about im ron Awan's case,

688
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,279
Speaker 1: how would it be possible for him to order that

689
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: volume of equipment unchecked? It's impossible for it to happen unchecked.

690
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 1: Someone knew that money was spent. If it came out

691
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 1: of a member's budget, someone in that office knows that

692
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: that money was spent and what it should have been

693
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: spent on. At one point, we learned that im ron

694
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: Awan had rendered his primary residence to a tenant who

695
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: found a boxful of IT materials in his garage, which

696
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: raised the question of the Press of how they could

697
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,840
Speaker 1: have gotten there. And it was reported that because of

698
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 1: house security and the delivery of IT equipment, he would

699
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:48,880
Speaker 1: sometimes ship items to your home. What is the house

700
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: protocol on them? Anything that shipped directly into the house

701
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: has to go through the house mail system and go

702
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 1: through testing for chemical warfare and things like that in

703
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 1: dangerous materials. So if you needed you. Again, if you

704
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 1: needed a piece of equipment and at Tommy Manor, you

705
00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 1: could ship it to an off site location, to a

706
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 1: FedEx office or something like that, and then a staff

707
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: member would be permitted to carry that onto campus. So

708
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:16,760
Speaker 1: it's not another an uncommon practice, especially in time sensitive needs,

709
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:19,359
Speaker 1: that you would have something shipped twenty eight thousand dollars

710
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 1: worth of stuff. You need a truck to carry that,

711
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 1: and that's not going in the backseat of your car.

712
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: How is it that m Rondo one was able to

713
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: employ several of his family members who were inexperienced in

714
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:32,360
Speaker 1: IT services to work with him in the House. Well,

715
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 1: it is against house policy to pay someone to do

716
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:39,319
Speaker 1: your job. So a legislative assistant couldn't hire a writer

717
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:43,399
Speaker 1: to write their documents for them, a systems administrator can't

718
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 1: hire another systems administrator to do their job for them.

719
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: And in all intense purposes, that appears to be what

720
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 1: the awans were doing. You had a qualified IT person,

721
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: maybe one or two of the brothers, but then you

722
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 1: know the third brother, the wife, whoever else that they

723
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: brought in. I don't I don't know if they even

724
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 1: actually came to the hill to do any work and

725
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: you know that's you know, I'm not the one to

726
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,239
Speaker 1: judge that, but there's no feasible way that you would

727
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: that you'd have that many people in the same family

728
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 1: working across lines like that. That's highly inappropriate and how

729
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:18,799
Speaker 1: did it go undetected? Again, A member of Congress has

730
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: the ability to hire anyone they want to be on

731
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:24,479
Speaker 1: their staff member. There is no background checks because they'd

732
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: have to background check every staff member they hired, which

733
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: is would be a big expense to the government. That's unnecessary.

734
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:32,839
Speaker 1: The members should be doing the vetting and hiring people

735
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 1: that they trust. You know, I had members of Congress

736
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: that you know, I had access to their personal financial

737
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: information because they trusted me that much. You know, I

738
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:42,360
Speaker 1: was working on their computer and their their check books

739
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:44,320
Speaker 1: open on their I don't worry about just close that window.

740
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: So there's a level of trust that's there. I know.

741
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: One of the big issues that came up was about

742
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:55,320
Speaker 1: h Mron having Debbie Washerman Schultz's password. Very common practice

743
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: with a shared employee. Members are traveling, some of them

744
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 1: are not tech savy individuals, and having one or two

745
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:06,359
Speaker 1: shared are trusted staffers in the office that have that

746
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: password is a very valuable thing with working with some members.

747
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 1: So this whole notion of a trusted person, Yet no

748
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 1: one is doing background checks or even necessarily vetting members

749
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:20,759
Speaker 1: of their own staff. We're under the impression that every

750
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: shared employee or IT employee for that matter, anybody working

751
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 1: in Congress would have background checks. The congressman has a

752
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 1: right to fill his staff with whoever he sees fit.

753
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 1: Presumably it's people from his district or other known quantities

754
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:38,800
Speaker 1: of an individual that they can trust. There are security

755
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 1: checks in place. The average you know LA or else

756
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 1: legislati assistant or lets to correspondent doesn't have access to

757
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: the files of any other staff round the office. It's

758
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,800
Speaker 1: sectioned off so that you have access to your section

759
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:56,359
Speaker 1: of documents and other people don't. But then as you

760
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: increase and staff level, the legislative director can obviously the

761
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:03,759
Speaker 1: legislative director can obviously see the documents of all the

762
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 1: las below them, and then the chief of staff can

763
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 1: obviously see everything in the office, every email sent in

764
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 1: and out by every staff or they have access to.

765
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: And that's not through a shared drive. That's just generally

766
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 1: if they need to look at what you're doing they

767
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: can see it easily. Yeah. Absolutely, There's got to be

768
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: checks and balances in any organization. As you know, the

769
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 1: chief of staff is basically you know, the president of

770
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:25,719
Speaker 1: a company, if you want to look at it that way,

771
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:27,839
Speaker 1: and they need to have checks and balances at every

772
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:30,239
Speaker 1: level below them. So they need to have access to

773
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:32,919
Speaker 1: that information. You know, if there's something ever called into

774
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 1: questions ethics wise, they need to be able to go

775
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 1: back and look at that and not necessarily let the

776
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 1: lower level staff or and know that it's being looked at.

777
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 1: So what you're implying here is he didn't hack anybody

778
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: he had access. Back in October of two thousand and four,

779
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: when I started on the Hill, the House was actually

780
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 1: already moving towards a shared server environment. There were still

781
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 1: offices that had there's still offices that had servers in

782
00:42:57,680 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: their office, but it was a dinosaur and they were

783
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: going away. There was a trust issue, you know, you

784
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 1: were used to having your data in your office and

785
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:05,840
Speaker 1: now you were handing it over to the Hill to

786
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:09,719
Speaker 1: watch over it for you. But it's it's a very

787
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:13,279
Speaker 1: cost effective way to manage data and it's a good

788
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:16,880
Speaker 1: use of taxpayer money. With that being said, the security

789
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: that's in place. Each individual member has their own section

790
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 1: of the server. It is secured, it is monitored, so

791
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,439
Speaker 1: only people that have rights to access that data can

792
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 1: get to that data. There's no hacking across lines. It

793
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 1: is an internal environment that's not open to the outside.

794
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: So anybody that was in there was granted access by

795
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:41,200
Speaker 1: someone to be in each individual section. So as a

796
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: shared staff member working for eight different members, I would

797
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: have access into eight different sections of that server, one

798
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:51,800
Speaker 1: for each member of Congress. So if you were working

799
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:55,240
Speaker 1: for twenty five thirty different offices along with your brothers

800
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 1: and your wife, you would have access to twenty five

801
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: or thirty different sections of the server. Now, not just

802
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,520
Speaker 1: membered data is there. Each caucus, each committee has it

803
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:07,359
Speaker 1: will have a section of that server space as well.

804
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: But I fully trust that the House I. T. Department

805
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 1: is secured and monitored it the folks they have managing

806
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 1: that system. Every keystroke they make on their keyboard is recorded,

807
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: so there's no chance that a rogue IT person is

808
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: hacking into that. It's intentional access that's intentionally given. The

809
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:29,320
Speaker 1: one other question, which you really have nicely just answered,

810
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:32,840
Speaker 1: is can it be hacked from the outside. Anything is possible.

811
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: These systems are accessible not only in DC but back

812
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:41,839
Speaker 1: in the state, so it's possible. The House has more

813
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: than one security of course I can't comment on what

814
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 1: they are, but they have one more than one firewall

815
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 1: security protocol in place to prevent that from happening. That

816
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:54,799
Speaker 1: the odds on this being hacked are extremely slim. Number one,

817
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 1: there's no financial data there at all. There's personal information

818
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:01,399
Speaker 1: about constituents who are having case worked, but there's there's

819
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 1: no financial gain. There's no real embarrassment there to hack

820
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 1: into this sort of data. So I don't see a

821
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: huge fear in that. There wasn't a contractor to the Hill.

822
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:16,480
Speaker 1: Probably about eight years ago, their server got hacked, but

823
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 1: there's it was controlled by the contractor, and the House

824
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 1: took immediate action against that contractor to make sure that

825
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 1: their IT process, their IT infrastructure came up to the

826
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 1: House standard and patched whatever hole was left, and they

827
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 1: paid a dire consequence for not being secure. Okay, So

828
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 1: the other perplexing thing about this case is the IG

829
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 1: comes out with their report and says, subject matter urgent,

830
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:45,040
Speaker 1: we know that there's some invasion on our servers here

831
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 1: in the House. You need to get rid of these

832
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:50,360
Speaker 1: five people a SAP and then you fast forward, and

833
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: that was I believe February of twenty seventeen, and then

834
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 1: July third, twenty eighteen. There's a plea agreement. In section

835
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 1: eight of the plea agreement, Clue states that the government says, no,

836
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 1: nothing went wrong. Tell me if you can a little

837
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 1: about the IG report. When it first came out, the

838
00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:10,400
Speaker 1: IG sent out a notice to all members of Congress

839
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:14,399
Speaker 1: that there had been a breach, there had been some

840
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 1: sort of malthesis committed by a group of people. There

841
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: had been evidence, and it's my understanding that they had

842
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:23,359
Speaker 1: been watching them for a period of time to know

843
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:27,319
Speaker 1: that something had occurred. Then to have years or more

844
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:29,359
Speaker 1: or later to have them come back and say nothing.

845
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 1: To see here is impossible. If the FBI misses things

846
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 1: every once in a while, but you don't suspend access

847
00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 1: to the servers. You don't just all of a sudden

848
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 1: decide this person has done something and then come back.

849
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: We know things occurred. We know that we were told

850
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:47,520
Speaker 1: that the terabyte of data. We know we were told

851
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 1: about the breaches to the system, the unauthorized access, the

852
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:55,800
Speaker 1: access from foreign countries to the system. So knowing those things,

853
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:57,919
Speaker 1: for them to come back and say nothing to see

854
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 1: here is a slap in the face of every intelligent person.

855
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:03,399
Speaker 1: They should The only acceptable outcome would have been, these

856
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 1: are the things they did wrong, and this is what

857
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: we're going to do about it. The other outcome is

858
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 1: we've done further investigation and yes, these things were done.

859
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 1: These were against House policy, House security policy, and there

860
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 1: were violations, but nothing reached the point of a criminal charge.

861
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:22,359
Speaker 1: That would have been an acceptable statement to me as

862
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:26,800
Speaker 1: an intelligent IT individual. To stack up all the evidence,

863
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:29,440
Speaker 1: go through everything you went through with the investigation, and

864
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: it is saying nothing to see here. That's not acceptable

865
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 1: to me. And when the IG report comes out and

866
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 1: they ask every member of Congress to reconsider having the

867
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,520
Speaker 1: ones in their employee, all but one member of Congress

868
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 1: fires them the day the IG report comes out, Yeah,

869
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: all but one member of Congress. As as I understand,

870
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:49,840
Speaker 1: all but one member of Congress removed them from staff.

871
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 1: That member chose to keep them on. They did not

872
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 1: have systems administration access the House. That's suspended their right

873
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: to have that. So what services they were continuing to provide?

874
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,279
Speaker 1: I don't know because they didn't have access to do that.

875
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 1: So one they weren't providing any service, or two they

876
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:07,799
Speaker 1: were doing it against House IT policy by someone else

877
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: obtaining those credentials and allowing him to use them. And

878
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 1: just to be one clear, every time you log on

879
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:18,280
Speaker 1: as a systems administrator to the individual member of Congress's server,

880
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: that triggers HIR to track you've logged on at this

881
00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:25,879
Speaker 1: day and time and you've done the following things. It's

882
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:29,839
Speaker 1: always tracked when anyone logs into the network, you log in,

883
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 1: you log out. What applications did you access while you

884
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:36,240
Speaker 1: were logged in? That is tracked when anybody logs in administrators,

885
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 1: every time they make a change to anything, file access,

886
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 1: user permissions, emails, that is tracked what they did, when

887
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: they did it, and how it happened. So if you

888
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 1: go in, I can go in and give myself access

889
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,719
Speaker 1: as an administrator to anyone's email box and look at

890
00:48:53,719 --> 00:48:56,799
Speaker 1: their emails. Well, that needs to be tracked. So if

891
00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 1: I'm going in and granting permissions, that needs to be known. Hey,

892
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: how did someone know about this email? It's in my

893
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:04,160
Speaker 1: private box? Well, then they can go back to the

894
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 1: log and see that. So there's not a police state

895
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 1: where someone is sitting there and just watching every administrator

896
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 1: as they log in. But if something was to occur,

897
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 1: there would be a log to go back and look

898
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 1: at what policies who changed. Talking to several friends who

899
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 1: are still shared employees up there, the communication between house

900
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,920
Speaker 1: IT and the shared staff has increased. I want to

901
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:29,000
Speaker 1: say there was an animosity between the two groups, but

902
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 1: there was. There was never a cohesive time where they

903
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: work together, and I think that's dramatically changed since the

904
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: Rnawan scandal. It's given HR a reason to communicate more

905
00:49:42,120 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 1: other than it's, you know, than a good reason it was,

906
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:46,840
Speaker 1: there's a security reason. We need to get more involved

907
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:50,040
Speaker 1: with these folks and understand them better. As far as

908
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: working with them on policy changes, I'm hearing there's a

909
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:56,920
Speaker 1: lot more communication back and forth. They're taking a lot

910
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 1: more input from the people who are in the office

911
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: every day doing things to you know, we implemented this

912
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 1: new policy. It's affecting you, how well, how can we

913
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,040
Speaker 1: adapt it so that it's still secure. It gives you

914
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:13,319
Speaker 1: the freedom to do your job. Thank you, Patrick. Next,

915
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: I'll talk with Congressman Louie Gombert of Texas. He was

916
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: one of the first voices in Congress to ask for

917
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:22,840
Speaker 1: more information about the Awans and the details of their breach,

918
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:31,279
Speaker 1: and he was stonewalled that story. Next the Westwood One

919
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:35,239
Speaker 1: Podcast Network, a daily wire's been Shapiro Show. Whatever Republicans

920
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:38,319
Speaker 1: make a mistake, it's never democrats pounced as Republicans. As

921
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:41,520
Speaker 1: republicans real, it's ever democrats pouncing, but Republicans pounce has

922
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 1: become such a meme that people on the right know

923
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 1: that as soon as Democrats do something bad, there will

924
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,319
Speaker 1: be a bevy of articles about Republicans pouncing. The Ben

925
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 1: Shapiro Show download and subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Google Play

926
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 1: and the Westwood One podcast at Free Free from the

927
00:50:55,680 --> 00:51:07,839
Speaker 1: Westwood one Podcast Network. I'm pleased to introduce Congressman Louis

928
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: Gilmber to Texas. He was one of the leading voices

929
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 1: requesting more information about the AWE's and the possible breach.

930
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:18,239
Speaker 1: Congressmin How did you first hear about him? Rono Ian

931
00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:21,320
Speaker 1: and his activities in the House. I'd heard a rumored

932
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:24,360
Speaker 1: that there was a breach of our congressional computer system

933
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 1: the House, and that it was probably just Democrats who

934
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:33,399
Speaker 1: weren't sure but probably just Democrats that they had an

935
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:38,320
Speaker 1: it or a computer professional that was working for many

936
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 1: of the Democrats. But I asked for a briefing. I

937
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 1: asked for information on it because it didn't seem that

938
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 1: Speaker Ryan or really anybody was all that concerned about it.

939
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 1: I was very concerned. So we got a briefing. It

940
00:51:56,360 --> 00:52:00,360
Speaker 1: was set up for a specific time and place, and

941
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 1: any Republican members that were interested could come because it

942
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: was arranged through the Speaker, and we had it's the

943
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:18,360
Speaker 1: chairman of the House Administrative Committee, we had the Chief

944
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: counting Officer for the House and his deputy, and there

945
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 1: was a lot of talk for a good while about it,

946
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:30,240
Speaker 1: but there was no real information about what had happened,

947
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:33,480
Speaker 1: and that gave me great concern. You know, I have

948
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: been a prosecutor before, I have been a felony judge

949
00:52:38,719 --> 00:52:42,239
Speaker 1: before a chief justice of an intermediate Court of Appeals,

950
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:47,360
Speaker 1: and you know, I just wasn't used to having people

951
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:54,279
Speaker 1: give me information that was vague, ambiguous, and was not

952
00:52:55,080 --> 00:52:57,960
Speaker 1: full of facts. It was just kind of the runaround.

953
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:02,239
Speaker 1: Can you describe for our listen how they were vague? Well, like,

954
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:06,279
Speaker 1: what kind of breach was there? Who did it, and

955
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:09,440
Speaker 1: we got we did get information on who was involved.

956
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:15,800
Speaker 1: M rna I was. We were told the IT specialist

957
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 1: that had started like fourteen years ago something like that,

958
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 1: but around two thousand and five, somewhere in that neighborhood

959
00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:33,839
Speaker 1: as a computer specialists for Democrat and others started hiring him,

960
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:37,960
Speaker 1: and they kept adding people, and that there was a

961
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:41,400
Speaker 1: group of IT specialists that were working for forty or

962
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: so Democrats. But that was about as specific as it got,

963
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 1: and I was wanting to know more. You know, what

964
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 1: kind of breaches, what kind of investigation? Is there any

965
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:59,799
Speaker 1: outside information or any outside entities that have gotten information

966
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:04,959
Speaker 1: through these people? And there just were terribly inadequate answers

967
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 1: just in general. Well, we don't think there is any

968
00:54:08,640 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: major problem. We don't think that this has compromised our system.

969
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:19,359
Speaker 1: We don't think that any crime was committed. That's what

970
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:22,879
Speaker 1: I mean by being vague. And I'm like I said,

971
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:27,360
Speaker 1: I've made presentations to a grand jury before, and that's

972
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:30,520
Speaker 1: not the kind of information you give. If there was

973
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:34,520
Speaker 1: potential for a crime, you asked the questions, you get

974
00:54:34,640 --> 00:54:38,799
Speaker 1: specific answers and not just well, we don't think this

975
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:43,279
Speaker 1: was a problem. That's not inadequate answer. What kinds of

976
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:46,279
Speaker 1: things were you hearing that piqued your interest and made

977
00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: you want to request a Briefly, there was someone that

978
00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:52,239
Speaker 1: had been hired by some of the Democrats who one

979
00:54:52,360 --> 00:54:59,280
Speaker 1: or more who may have possibly breached our computer system

980
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: of more than just the Democrats, and there may have

981
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:08,719
Speaker 1: been illegal activity, just that kind of thing, just enough

982
00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:13,239
Speaker 1: to do well, if that's a possibility, what have we

983
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 1: found out? What's the determination? And was shocked when there

984
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: were nothing but vague answers, Well, we don't think this

985
00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:25,799
Speaker 1: has occurred. Well, how did you investigate? Well, you know,

986
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 1: we don't want to get too specific because it is

987
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:32,879
Speaker 1: an ongoing investigation. Well, that's what the FBI often does

988
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 1: to keep from answering specifically. Well, there's an ongoing investigation,

989
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:40,360
Speaker 1: and we were sure that this was ongoing. It was

990
00:55:40,520 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 1: very thorough and it was quite some time before we

991
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:47,440
Speaker 1: found out it may have been ongoing, but it was

992
00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: anything but thorough. And then when January came around, what happened,

993
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:57,520
Speaker 1: Well in January, as I understand that the Inspector General

994
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:05,399
Speaker 1: was investigating and compiled a great deal of information, and

995
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:10,000
Speaker 1: this didn't this did not come out in that initial

996
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:13,719
Speaker 1: briefing we got that I was saying, I thought it

997
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:20,480
Speaker 1: was very unsatisfactory without any real specifics. There absolutely had

998
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 1: to have been crimes committed under federal law. If you

999
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:35,640
Speaker 1: knowingly falsify any document, procurement document, that is a felony

1000
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:41,840
Speaker 1: crime under federal law. And we were understanding that m

1001
00:56:41,960 --> 00:56:48,120
Speaker 1: run Awe or family members that they were aware that

1002
00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:54,080
Speaker 1: if you make a purchase of anything on behalf of

1003
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:57,400
Speaker 1: a member of the House of Representatives and it costs

1004
00:56:57,560 --> 00:57:02,239
Speaker 1: more than five hundred dollars, you have to specifically get

1005
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:06,560
Speaker 1: down the serial number, and that item is kept in

1006
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:13,279
Speaker 1: your inventory, and if that item ever disappears, somebody is

1007
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:17,040
Speaker 1: supposed to be made to account. If I mean, like,

1008
00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:22,160
Speaker 1: we've had a couch that somebody probably in the eighties

1009
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:25,480
Speaker 1: lost the couch. We have no idea where it went.

1010
00:57:25,560 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: They probably just moved it out of their office. But

1011
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:33,000
Speaker 1: we have not been allowed to write off that couch,

1012
00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:35,760
Speaker 1: even though it hadn't probably been around for thirty years.

1013
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:40,800
Speaker 1: They said no. And so when I'm hearing there have

1014
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:46,040
Speaker 1: been purchases of iPads that cost around seven und ninety

1015
00:57:46,040 --> 00:57:52,360
Speaker 1: eight dollars and there were procurement documents prepared by either

1016
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:55,200
Speaker 1: m Ron or somebody in his family one of his

1017
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:59,840
Speaker 1: workers to say it costs four hundred and ninety eight dollars. Well,

1018
00:58:00,040 --> 00:58:02,400
Speaker 1: that seems to be pretty clear. They're trying to get

1019
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:06,360
Speaker 1: under the requirement of keeping the serial number, which would

1020
00:58:06,400 --> 00:58:09,479
Speaker 1: then allow you to take those items and sell them,

1021
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:13,040
Speaker 1: and nobody would have be able to account for where

1022
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: what was specifically purchased with the serial number and where

1023
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:20,480
Speaker 1: it specifically went. Let's talk about the three things at

1024
00:58:20,560 --> 00:58:23,320
Speaker 1: him Runo one and his family are accused of. One

1025
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:26,320
Speaker 1: is dummying the invoices so they don't have to be

1026
00:58:26,360 --> 00:58:30,240
Speaker 1: tracked with a barcode through the IT system. So let

1027
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:32,840
Speaker 1: me ask you about that for a second. Because Patrick Sowers,

1028
00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 1: who also held an IT specialist position similar tim run

1029
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:39,520
Speaker 1: A one, explains that it's up to the member of

1030
00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:43,160
Speaker 1: the House who hires their shared employee to discover or

1031
00:58:43,200 --> 00:58:47,320
Speaker 1: decide on running a background check. On background checks are

1032
00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 1: supposed to be done for IT specialists. The exception is

1033
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:58,920
Speaker 1: if you work for multiple members of Congress, then another

1034
00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:04,760
Speaker 1: member of Congress can sign a form saying this individual

1035
00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: works for multiple members of Congress and so a background

1036
00:59:09,240 --> 00:59:13,000
Speaker 1: check is not necessary in this particular case. Well, the

1037
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:15,920
Speaker 1: reason a member of Congress is allowed to sign that.

1038
00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:20,439
Speaker 1: The reasoning is that they've already had a background check

1039
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:23,880
Speaker 1: from some other member of Congress, and this person also

1040
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:27,680
Speaker 1: works for others, So every single member of Congress shouldn't

1041
00:59:27,720 --> 00:59:31,280
Speaker 1: have to get a background check on an IT specialist

1042
00:59:31,920 --> 00:59:35,320
Speaker 1: when it's already been done. But in the case of

1043
00:59:35,360 --> 00:59:41,560
Speaker 1: the ones, they got the forms signed saying that's not necessary,

1044
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:47,439
Speaker 1: but nobody ever did one, so that policy has been clarified,

1045
00:59:47,920 --> 00:59:51,280
Speaker 1: as I understand it, so that there has to be

1046
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:54,440
Speaker 1: one now. But in his case, his family's case, his

1047
00:59:54,560 --> 00:59:58,640
Speaker 1: employees cases, it apparently wasn't done. I think one of

1048
00:59:58,680 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 1: the main questions is that there is a House IT department,

1049
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:05,680
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they hold and maintain these background checks so

1050
01:00:05,720 --> 01:00:08,320
Speaker 1: the number of Congress could just call them directly and say, hey,

1051
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:12,680
Speaker 1: is this guy good? Well, that's a very logical question,

1052
01:00:13,360 --> 01:00:16,280
Speaker 1: and that would be a very logical thing to do.

1053
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:20,120
Speaker 1: I guess you and I shouldn't be surprised that logic

1054
01:00:20,200 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 1: has no place here in the House of Representatives. So

1055
01:00:23,880 --> 01:00:27,760
Speaker 1: that was not done, and nobody were aware I've ever

1056
01:00:27,800 --> 01:00:32,640
Speaker 1: had a background check done. Because once the digging commenced

1057
01:00:32,640 --> 01:00:38,040
Speaker 1: by Luke and that was following the investigation by our

1058
01:00:38,120 --> 01:00:43,200
Speaker 1: ig then come to find out there are things that

1059
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:47,840
Speaker 1: should have scared anyone doing a background check and the

1060
01:00:47,880 --> 01:00:50,400
Speaker 1: way the background check works, and it's true in our

1061
01:00:50,440 --> 01:00:57,720
Speaker 1: intelligence agencies, but anything that an individual would want to

1062
01:00:57,840 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 1: keep private and not want anybody to know, if such

1063
01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:06,560
Speaker 1: a thing exists in their background, then that would be

1064
01:01:07,480 --> 01:01:13,760
Speaker 1: potential fertile ground for compromising someone who is in a

1065
01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:21,240
Speaker 1: secure position, as m Rnawan was. That's our intelligence officers say,

1066
01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:25,360
Speaker 1: we look, if somebody's having an affair, if there's something

1067
01:01:25,400 --> 01:01:29,360
Speaker 1: about their lives they don't want stitch ones or others

1068
01:01:29,400 --> 01:01:33,120
Speaker 1: in the public to know, then we that scares us.

1069
01:01:33,160 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 1: This person could be compromised. A foreign country or some

1070
01:01:38,160 --> 01:01:43,000
Speaker 1: element unsavory element in our country might find out about

1071
01:01:43,040 --> 01:01:46,160
Speaker 1: it use it to blackmail the individual to get to

1072
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:51,640
Speaker 1: secured information. Things like bankruptcy are still a matter of

1073
01:01:51,720 --> 01:01:57,680
Speaker 1: concern because if you're on in tough economic situations such

1074
01:01:57,720 --> 01:02:03,680
Speaker 1: that you'd have to file bankruptcy, then perhaps somebody could

1075
01:02:04,760 --> 01:02:10,040
Speaker 1: either blackmail you or bribe you easily. It might make

1076
01:02:10,080 --> 01:02:13,440
Speaker 1: you more vulnerable to a bribe if you're in a

1077
01:02:13,640 --> 01:02:18,360
Speaker 1: terrible financial situation. So when we found out that there

1078
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:22,960
Speaker 1: was a bankruptcy in the past, then we want, holy cow,

1079
01:02:23,440 --> 01:02:26,360
Speaker 1: that surely showed up in the background check. And then

1080
01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:29,560
Speaker 1: we found out, well, no, because there was not a

1081
01:02:29,560 --> 01:02:32,919
Speaker 1: background check that anybody could find. So it is your

1082
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:36,520
Speaker 1: understanding the House policy has changed on that since m

1083
01:02:36,600 --> 01:02:40,560
Speaker 1: rona one. My understanding is that because of m rona

1084
01:02:40,640 --> 01:02:44,600
Speaker 1: one and his family that there has to be a

1085
01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 1: background check. You can't just have everybody for whom the

1086
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:54,200
Speaker 1: specialist works signed the same form saying one's not needed.

1087
01:02:54,400 --> 01:02:59,160
Speaker 1: Somebody has to have already done a background check before

1088
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:03,440
Speaker 1: you can wave it in other offices. As a former prosecutor,

1089
01:03:03,680 --> 01:03:06,200
Speaker 1: what is the most shocking thing about this whole story

1090
01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:11,720
Speaker 1: to you? Everything? Sorry, it's just every step along the way,

1091
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:15,200
Speaker 1: the fact that we would have a speaker that was

1092
01:03:15,240 --> 01:03:19,840
Speaker 1: a price that our system was potentially breached. And the

1093
01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:23,080
Speaker 1: response is, well, let's sit on it for a number

1094
01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:26,840
Speaker 1: of months until after an election. The election should not

1095
01:03:26,920 --> 01:03:31,360
Speaker 1: have had anything to do with the response appropriately from

1096
01:03:31,400 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 1: anybody using their sense, and that's a presumption that they

1097
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:37,320
Speaker 1: have some But you would say, we've got to get

1098
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:41,080
Speaker 1: to the bottom of this now. This is too important

1099
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 1: to worry about the election. Let's find out if a

1100
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:49,280
Speaker 1: foreign country of foreign government is having access to our information.

1101
01:03:49,880 --> 01:03:53,760
Speaker 1: And we saw what the Democrats have made alleging that

1102
01:03:53,960 --> 01:04:01,120
Speaker 1: Russia had hacked the DNC computer system. That was another

1103
01:04:01,160 --> 01:04:06,960
Speaker 1: shocking thing. When Wiki leaks had released information exchanges of

1104
01:04:07,040 --> 01:04:12,000
Speaker 1: communications between Democrats. There was something like, you know, we

1105
01:04:12,040 --> 01:04:16,000
Speaker 1: need to get into Debbie Wasserman Schultz system at the

1106
01:04:16,000 --> 01:04:21,080
Speaker 1: computer at the d Triple C or the DNC. I

1107
01:04:21,080 --> 01:04:25,440
Speaker 1: guess yeah, the DNC. She was here, and response was

1108
01:04:25,800 --> 01:04:29,440
Speaker 1: in essence, well, Mron has all that information once you

1109
01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:34,000
Speaker 1: contact him. And so then it was particularly alarming to

1110
01:04:34,040 --> 01:04:37,800
Speaker 1: find out apparently he was not paid by the DNC,

1111
01:04:38,680 --> 01:04:41,440
Speaker 1: but he was doing work for them, but he was

1112
01:04:41,560 --> 01:04:46,640
Speaker 1: being paid by Congress for these multiple Democrats he was

1113
01:04:46,720 --> 01:04:52,760
Speaker 1: working for. And then to see another independent report that

1114
01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:59,320
Speaker 1: the information that was downloaded from the DNC system probably

1115
01:04:59,400 --> 01:05:02,200
Speaker 1: could not have been done over the internet. That would

1116
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:05,240
Speaker 1: have been too slow. There was so much information downloaded

1117
01:05:05,800 --> 01:05:08,680
Speaker 1: it would had to have have been somebody doing it internally.

1118
01:05:08,760 --> 01:05:12,320
Speaker 1: That was one indication we'd seen from an article. So

1119
01:05:13,560 --> 01:05:15,440
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was true, but that was

1120
01:05:15,520 --> 01:05:19,240
Speaker 1: one of the reports. So if that were true, then

1121
01:05:19,280 --> 01:05:22,160
Speaker 1: obviously that was an inside job. And if it's an

1122
01:05:22,240 --> 01:05:26,480
Speaker 1: inside job, who had access, well, m ron did. I

1123
01:05:26,480 --> 01:05:29,720
Speaker 1: don't know whether it's him or somebody else. Some people

1124
01:05:29,720 --> 01:05:31,520
Speaker 1: have tried to say it was a young man that

1125
01:05:32,160 --> 01:05:36,200
Speaker 1: was killed, but I don't know. But it certainly should

1126
01:05:36,200 --> 01:05:42,080
Speaker 1: have been investigated. And the fact that the DNC, the

1127
01:05:42,120 --> 01:05:45,760
Speaker 1: Democratic National Committee, would not even allow the FBI to

1128
01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:50,040
Speaker 1: review their hard drive to do an investigation hands on

1129
01:05:50,640 --> 01:05:55,760
Speaker 1: with their system also caused me great concern and also

1130
01:05:56,480 --> 01:06:00,120
Speaker 1: was rather surprising. There were just so many aspects so

1131
01:06:00,240 --> 01:06:02,680
Speaker 1: that you go what they're not even going to let

1132
01:06:02,680 --> 01:06:07,280
Speaker 1: the FBI take a look at their system. They surely

1133
01:06:07,320 --> 01:06:11,360
Speaker 1: want to know how this got breached, but I was

1134
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:14,720
Speaker 1: wrong about that. Their narrative was the Russians did it,

1135
01:06:14,840 --> 01:06:18,320
Speaker 1: and they didn't want anything interrupting that narrative. Thank you,

1136
01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:23,000
Speaker 1: Congressman Gumert, thank you. As we study the Plea agreement

1137
01:06:23,040 --> 01:06:27,320
Speaker 1: im ron Awan signed, there's a paragraph in the paragraph

1138
01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:31,360
Speaker 1: eight that exempts im ron Awan of any wrongdoing in Congress.

1139
01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:34,840
Speaker 1: Was the Plea deal outcome a cover up to protect

1140
01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:38,600
Speaker 1: many powerful members of Congress. We may never know the truth,

1141
01:06:39,280 --> 01:06:41,280
Speaker 1: but I invite you to take a closer look at

1142
01:06:41,320 --> 01:06:44,640
Speaker 1: this case. On our show page at newtsworld dot com

1143
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:52,640
Speaker 1: and decide for yourself. Thanks for listening. Thank you to

1144
01:06:52,720 --> 01:06:57,000
Speaker 1: my guests Luke Rosiak, Patrick Sowers, and Congressman Louis Gumert.

1145
01:06:57,640 --> 01:07:01,080
Speaker 1: You can see the books, articles, and documents that we

1146
01:07:01,160 --> 01:07:04,480
Speaker 1: relied on in researching this episode on our show page

1147
01:07:04,800 --> 01:07:09,040
Speaker 1: at newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by Westwood One.

1148
01:07:09,600 --> 01:07:14,000
Speaker 1: The executive producer is Debbie Myers. Our producer is Garnsey Sloan.

1149
01:07:14,400 --> 01:07:18,920
Speaker 1: Our editor is Robert Browsky. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson.

1150
01:07:19,480 --> 01:07:21,960
Speaker 1: The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley.

1151
01:07:22,600 --> 01:07:26,320
Speaker 1: The music was composed by Joey Salvia. Special thanks to

1152
01:07:26,400 --> 01:07:30,480
Speaker 1: Tim Sabian and Robert Mathis. Please subscribe to Newtsworld on

1153
01:07:30,560 --> 01:07:36,560
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get entertaining podcasts.

1154
01:07:37,360 --> 01:07:40,800
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Newtsworld, we'll meet three incredibly

1155
01:07:40,840 --> 01:07:43,600
Speaker 1: talented doctors who are on the cutting edge of medical

1156
01:07:43,640 --> 01:07:48,840
Speaker 1: breakthroughs using gene therapy. I'm Nut Gingrich. This is Newtsworld.