Posted on 09/15/2017 9:14:13 PM PDT by bitt
On April 6, at midnight, in a small room once used as a phone booth on the second floor of the Rayburn House Office Building, a Capitol Hill Police Officer doing his security rounds discovered evidence that will possibly reveal one of the the biggest security breaches involving House Democrats by the Awan family, a group of entrusted IT staffers, according to court records, police reports and news reports.
In the small room, the U.S. Capitol Police found a laptop computer registered to Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Florida Democrat and former DNC chairwoman. Wasserman-Schultz had been fighting authorities for months to return the laptop, that she once claimed was not hers.
What's more concerning, say senior House officials who spoke to Circa, is that Imran Awan was also allegedly transferring files - including documents and emails - of House Democrats to a secret server connected to the less secure House Democratic Caucus. The organization was then chaired by Rep. Xavier Becerra, who left Congress in January after being sworn in as the Attorney General of California....
(Excerpt) Read more at circa.com ...
Caww & jjotto wrote: "How did these people ever have access to anything in our government? -cawwThat's a question for the FBI Director at the time the spy ring was setting up: James Comey. And for the Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. And for the GW Bush Administration." -jjotto
"Congress IT staffers, Imran Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, were indicted for fraud on August 17, 2017, in the DNC scandal. Federal authorities suspect that sensitive U.S. Government data, possibly classified information, may have been compromised or even sold to hostile foreign governments. Awan’s lawyer, Chris Gowen, stated that his client had no “classified clearance for anything.” Therein lies the problem. How can a computer IT staffer without appropriate clearances have access to sensitive and classified data?
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"Under a crushing backlog in the issuing or renewing of security clearances, federal authorities have given interim clearances to people they later discovered were murderers and pedophiles, a senior government official said Wednesday." "The backlog in security clearances soared in 2014 after one of three major contractors involved in conducting background checks, US Investigations Services LLC, lost its government business amid allegations that it had bungled and falsified results." Read more here:
WASHINGTON Under a crushing backlog in the issuing or renewing of security clearances, federal authorities have given interim clearances to people they later discovered were murderers and pedophiles, a senior government official said Wednesday.
“This is very, very dangerous,” said Daniel E. Payne, head of the Defense Security Service, a federal office that oversees the granting of temporary clearances.
Payne said roughly 100,000 people hold interim clearances while working for companies with Defense Department contracts or at 13,000 cleared facilities and plants around the country and as they await a full comprehensive background investigation.
“I’ve got murderers who have access to classified information. I have rapists. I have pedophiles. I have people involved in child porn,” Payne said. “This is the risk we are taking.”
Payne spoke on a panel about the backlog in security clearances at the Intelligence & National Security Summit in Washington. The backlog “grew precipitously” in 2015 and 2016, and stands at near record levels today, said Charles S. Phalen, director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, a federal service provider under the Office of Personnel Management. The backlog encompasses roughly 700,000 cases, but only 300,000 or so people are seeking a first-time clearance to enter government service, Phalen said. The remainder may be federal employees or contractors seeking a periodic renewal of a security clearance or a change in their clearance level, he added. They stay in federal jobs. Payne, a career counterintelligence officer with the CIA, said the concerns about interim clearances only affect the Defense Department and its associated industrial base, not the nation’s intelligence agencies, where temporary clearances are never granted. “I grant the interim clearances for the DOD. I also take the interim clearances away,” Payne told a reporter after the panel ended. Asked how many cases his office had discovered of people with a murder in their background, he said: “It’s more than several. I would say less than a dozen.” One case happened just a month ago when a man with an interim clearance got in an argument at a bar. “He pulls out a gun and shoots them in the face and kills them,” Payne said. Applicants obtain interim clearances after filling out a lengthy government form, known as an SF-86, and undergoing a credit check and an initial FBI background check. The full, comprehensive clearance involves far deeper research, including interviews with neighbors and work associates, deeper financial inquiries, checks of family history and probes into overseas travel. “You’re looking on average at close to a year for a top-secret clearance,” Payne said, adding that a lower level secret clearance takes an average of nine months. He said the backlog is so great the Pentagon has little choice but to offer interim clearances to keep weapons development programs at full steam. “If we did not give these individuals interim clearances, the production of these programs would shut down,” Payne said. “It would have a horrific impact.” The backlog in security clearances soared in 2014 after one of three major contractors involved in conducting background checks, US Investigations Services LLC, lost its government business amid allegations that it had bungled and falsified results. Other officials bemoaned bureaucracy in their attempts to make the clearance process more agile and up-to-date, including in the types of questions asked on the SF-86 form. “It took eight years to change one question on the SF-86,” said William R. Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, the nation’s top agency for catching foreign spies. Investigations entail sending agents to the homes of neighbors of an applicant. “I had FBI agents all over my neighborhood and my neighbors got very worried that I was in trouble,” said Beth McGrath, a former Pentagon management officer who now is managing director of federal strategy of Deloitte Consulting. Yet checking social media accounts of applicants has not been fully embraced, she said. “Some people think, ‘Oh, you’re infringing on my privacy,’” said McGrath. “This is where the process of government sometimes feels like it takes more steps than it should because you have to actually change the policy to say we’re going to allow social media information to be part of the background investigation.” Several officials said they expected the backlog to diminish as federal agencies and departments embrace a process of continuous evaluation of employees rather than periodic reappraisals every five to 10 years. The Defense Department now has 500,000 employees enrolled in the constant vetting program, a number that should grow to one million by year’s end, Payne said."
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Related:
” If in 2009 the FBI had halted, corrected, disclosed to the public and held those responsible to account for this national security name check debacle, the inaccurate background checks and vetting of Edward Snowden, Aaron Alexis, as well as the 665,000 flawed background checks conducted by security firm USIS might never have occurred.”
The following is a partial transcript of this 45 minute interview between Jason Goodman and Michael F. McMahon dated August 23, 2017. The above link is preset to begin 34 minutes into the video to coincide with this transcript segment:
Jason Goodman: ”...when I hear statements like corner-cutting and quantity over quality, it sounds very generous in your description, almost as if it’s an accident or if it’s a sort of a bureaucratic shortcoming. But, it certainly feel s like some of these things are done in a very deliberate sense to be able to purposely put nefarious people through that system...like ‘Imran Awan’ and others who are in place and in a position to really do harm on a major level.”
Michael F. McMahon: ”The ‘name checks’ at the ‘records management divisions’ / ‘national name check program’, OPM desk (Office of Personnel Management), um, the upper management in charge knowingly and willingly processed ‘name checks’ for the sake of expediency – PERIOD. Incidentally, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was reimbursing the FBI for ‘name checks reports’ that were sent by the FBI to OPM. So, in effect, it was a money making enterprise. ”
Jason Goodman: ”Wow, that’s pretty shocking!”
Michael F. McMahon: ”It’s a, uh, that is it was mandated. That was the program and that is known by everyone. That is something that is not a secret.”
Jason Goodman: ”Well, you know, it may not be a secret but it’s certainly – I don’t think known to the American public at large. One of the things that’s so advantageous about this format that we have here, this ‘Crowd-Source-Community’ and crowd supported community is that we don’t have to adhere to the traditional models of corporate control, the advertiser driven news media, that has to come out a specific time and fit into a specific time slot . For people who care to listen, which I think is a growing number , we can really get into these details with individuals, like yourself, who from personal experience really know what’s happening. So, I’ve got to thank you very much for taking this time, Michael. I hope that this will be the first in a series of interviews that you and I can do to just really delve into this and help you get your message out and help get this problem solved.”
Michael F. McMahon: ”I really appreciate that, Jason. My first goal, these are my whistleblower objectives and as I previously mentioned,
One thing which I would like to bring up – which I was not going to bring up on this conversation is that the retaliation whistle-blowers experience is, at least in my case, is unrelenting and they try to get you in line – put your eyes or head to the grindstone and get along with the program. In the past, over the decades or centuries, those who perpetrated bad things, crimes etc. etc. etc. – they would always say ‘I was only following orders. I was only following policy. This person told me to do that’. That can never happen. You have to hold everyone to account whether they’re in the lead or they’re actually the employees . Just because one is a lemming or a pollywog or has fear, they have to be held to account also.
Now, to get into the retaliation, for my part. I just want to bring this to light because it’s very important. On my, at my post as unit chief national ‘name check program’ OPM desk and other desks, by the way, not only did FBI Bureau personnel work the desks but they also had contractor research analysts who were farmed out also to augment the force of ‘name checks’ because of the cascading amount of name checks coming through by OPM . In particular, my division comprised of approximately 60% (six, zero) contracted research analysts and 40% (four, zero) bureau analysts. This is the point I’d like to bring up. Part of retaliation is this is how vicious the FBI – and I don’t mean as a total organization – the FBI management where I worked were. This has to be exposed.
There was collusion between the FBI Records Management Division and Contractor Research Analyst Firms Management who colluded to get me terminated because I would not play the numbers game. You know, processing ‘name checks’ for the sake of expediency. Many, many contract research analysts came up to me stating that their respective management were going around prior to me getting terminated asking if they had anything adverse to say about unit chief McMahon. Of course, I have the names etc. etc. This is how a perverse, I guess you can say ‘allegiance to FBI’ as an entity as opposed to America as where you’re supposed to have your allegiance to. It was absolutely disgraceful. There are many other adjectives and adverbs I could use but it was shameful and this has to be exposed. “
Mayonnaise is the recommended treatment for head lice. It produces better results that any of the commercial head lice products.
I don’t even have a smart phone, but I think Liz wants to listen to that MP-3 on some mobile device, but can’t download it from A to B. And I haven’t got a clue.
I somehow cross-replied. Look for a different ping.
‘Two further scenarios apply to defeat the attachment of the spousal communications privilege: if the confidential communication was made in order to plan or commit crime or
fraud, or if a defendant-spouse wishes, in a criminal trial, to testify in their own defense, about a confidential marital communication. In these five cases, a court will not allow either spouse to assert the privilege
to block the testimony.’
thanks - useful info!
‘“..lead to more questions...”
Are the Capital Police and FBI investigators all completely incompetent? They have had this case long enough and certainly collected enough solid evidence to get an indictment. And yet there are no arrests - no one is behind bars?? What is going on in the law enforcement world?’
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We citizens only heard whispers about this in January/February of this year.. apparently from the date of the first grand jury about the Awans’ swindles of the Congressional Federal Loans in NOVEMBER 2016!!!!! the problem was “known” BEFORE the last election but was broomed until after the election - does that remind us of BENGHAZI?????
And nothing was done to remove/arrest these people regarding their access to the Congressional networks until the spring? And allowing Imran access to the servers and email address of 123***.gov.. while they fiddled with mortgage fraud charges until JULY?
George Webb tells us that that email address Imran was using is still active - hopefully because they are investigating who else has been using it - apparently Imran upgraded the blackberries to allowing BCC emails - so who knows WHO was getting the blind copies of the emails that could have been accessed by anybody using the password to that email address..
ping to #41
great stuff - this is so big we keep forgetting what we’ve learned so far..
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3586332/posts
Proof for Pardon: Julian Assange Ready to Spill the Beans on DNC in Exchange for Pardon
Don’t bother George Webb’s already done it for you
George Webb’s been a rockstar in this entire investigation he’s done all the work for everyone only have to do is follow up on what he did
Yeah don’t forget the stolen car ring that Imran was involved in where Alpha Jolla stole 1000 cars in New York sold them to awans dealership in dc who sold them to West Africa with tracks trackers in them so they can see where the people went and then sold some of them to the Mideast and then there’s murder and then there’s extortion and there’s kidnapping and and I you name it this guy’s been in there he’s an arch criminal described as willing to do anything for a buck
Nice rant. I pity the poor guy who put his luxury car in Imran’s hands to sell. when he didn’t get either the car or the sales price.....poof, he’s dead.
see this today? GW suggesting it’s a gov’t operation..spying on Congress..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jjGeoCkZeQ
Pakistani nationals set up shop in the US Congress a couple years after 9-11 and bureaucrats, Congress and a presidential administration had too big a backlog of work to notice? And after 12 years still no one noticed?
heh heh
Just unbelievable.
Never forget...
Perfect. I am thinking spring 2018 for that headline.
Xavier Becerra should be in jail for providing a fake server to
investigators.
You don't say.
Golly, Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz must be breathing a sigh of relief.........she's off the hook.
Now her fellow Democrats know she's just an ordinary spy....a spy for the federal govt.
Debbie put spies in her Democrat pal's offices to get dirt on their wrongdoing.
I guess Debbie's feeing really good about that.
ROTFLOL.
Treason file bookmark...
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