Former Florida governor Jeb Bush slammed Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and House Democrats on Saturday for their “incompetence and terrible judgment” in the growing House IT scandal.
“The incompetence and terrible judgment displayed by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and House Democrats is jarring,” Bush wrote on Twitter, linking to a column by Wall Street Journalist Kimberly Strassel titled, “The Scandal That Mattters.”
Strassel noted that “based on what we already know, the Awan story is—at the very least—a tale of massive government incompetence that seemingly allowed a family of accused swindlers to bilk federal taxpayers out of millions and even put national secrets at risk. In a more accountable world, House Democrats would be forced to step down.” (RELATED: Pakistani Suspects In House IT Probe Received $4 Million From Dem Reps)
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz speaks at a rally, before the arrival of Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her vice presidential running mate U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, in Miami, Florida, U.S. July 23, 2016. Picture taken July 23, 2016. REUTERS/Scott Audette
Strassel’s comments follows Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis saying this week that the House IT scandal is one of the “all-time congressional scandals in the last 30 years.”
The FBI arrested one of Wasserman Schultz’s top IT aides, Imran Awan, on bank fraud charges in late May as he attempted to flee the country to Pakistan, where he had recently wired almost $300,000. Awan and several of his family members who worked for dozens of House Democrats are suspected of stealing computers and improperly accessing and transferring House members’ computer files.
Imran Awan seen here with former President Bill Clinton / Facebook
Wasserman Schultz refused to fire Awan for months, despite the FBI and Capitol Police’s active investigation into the members of the Awan family. She finally fired Awan only after he was arrested at the airport.
Wasserman Schultz threatened the Capitol Police chief in May for gathering evidence on her IT staffers’ alleged crimes. Wasserman Schultz, the former head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), threatened the police chief with “consequences” if he didn’t return a laptop computer that she indicated belonged to her. (She now says that the laptop wasn’t hers and claims that she never actually saw it.)
The Awans had access to every email that dozens of Democratic congressmen sent an received. Multiple House IT aides have expressed concern that Awans could be blackmailing Democrats with their own data.
“But even without evidence of espionage or blackmail,” Strassel wrote in her column, “this ought to be an enormous scandal.
Editor’s Note: