Wasserman Schultz chided on aide answers
Critics have pounded U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz during the past two weeks over her handling of an information technology aide whom she kept on the payroll for months after he was banned from the House IT network.
And they weren’t satisfied with the South Florida Democrat’s responses to questions about Imran Awan, the now fired IT worker.
Tim Canova, who is challenging Wasserman Schultz in next year’s Democratic primary, said “millions of Americans” don’t trust her to “give straight answers to any of these questions” about Awan.
“Wasserman Schultz now makes a lot of self-serving excuses for Awan, dismisses her critics as right-wing media fringe, and suggests that law enforcement agencies are guilty of racial and ethnic profiling of Awan,” he said in an emailed statement.
The Republican Party of Florida was incredulous in a statement on Twitter. “SERIOUSLY?! Debbie says she has no regrets about keeping Awan on payroll while under FBI investigation,” the party wrote in a tweet.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush, also writing on Twitter, said Saturday, “The incompetence and terrible judgment displayed by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and House Democrats is jarring.”
Bush, who unsuccessfully sought the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, was on the receiving end of criticism from Wasserman Schultz, who was chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee at the time.
Mitchell Berger, one of Fort Lauderdale’s most prominent Democrats and a major player in Al Gore’s unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign, offered a different view.
“It’s disturbing that people wish to react rather than understand what happened,” Berger said. “Doing the right thing sometimes is not easy. It’s called leadership.’’
The controversy involves Awan, an IT aide for many Democratic members of Congress. Many members paid him a parttime salary to provide support in their offices.
When congressional officers were told in February that Awan was under investigation, most quickly fired him. Wasserman Schultz kept him on the payroll — a decision she said she’d make the same way again — for more than six months.
She fired him on July 25, the day after he was arrested on bank fraud charges at an airport while trying to leave the country.
His arrest, she said, had nothing to do with the months-long investigation of Awan as an IT worker for a variety of members of Congress. An FBI affidavit filed with the criminal complaint said Awan and his wife claimed a property used to secure a home equity line of credit was a “principal residence,” when it was a rental property. Wasserman Schultz said there still hasn’t been any evidence presented that he’s done anything wrong involving his work for Congress.
And, she said, she believes he may have been put under scrutiny because of his religious faith. Awan is Muslim.
The Republican National Committee seized on that contention. An RNC email highlighting interview excerpts put this spin in the subject line: “DWS calls FBI, Capitol Police racist.”