Trump brings up ‘Pak mystery man’ to counter lawsuit filed by Democrats

WASHINGTON : President Trump has introduced a “Pakistani mystery man” who he claimed had unspecified “documents” that would help him counter the Democrats’ lawsuit against his campaign, WikiLeaks and Russia for alleged manipulation of the 2016 presidential election.

“This can be good news in that we will now counter for the DNC Server that they refused to give to the FBI, the Debbie Wasserman Schultz Servers and Documents held by the Pakistani mystery man and Clinton Emails,” Trump tweeted on Friday after the Democratic National Committee announced the lawsuit.

The mention of the ‘Pakistani Mystery Man’ is Trump’s nod to conservative media reports on Imran Awan, a Pakistani American who, along with some family members, had done IT jobs for US lawmakers for several years.

They were subject of a federal investigation into their digital footprints. They appeared to be accessing congressional servers without authorisation, an indication that they “could be reading and/or removing information,” according to documents distributed at a meeting the investigators had in September 2016 with leaders in the House of Representatives, the Washington Post had said in a report on the probe.

Investigators arrested Imran Awan in July 2017 for an unrelated bank fraud.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a lawmaker Imran had worked for, chaired the DNC for much of 2016 election campaign cycle. She refused to sack Imran until shown incontrovertible proof of his guilt. But Conservative media outlets had run several stories on Imran, alleging his family was spying for Pakistan.