Rosiak - Obstruction of justice: how the deep state risked national security to protect democrats

For my daughters Olivia, who was born when I began this investigation, and Avery, who was born as it ended. Their natural joy and directness kept me grounded as I was immersed in a world that seemed self-preservationist, hypocritical, and cynical at every turn.

NEWT GINGRICH

I am delighted to write this foreword for Luke Rosiaks remarkable book, Obstruction of Justice , which exposes corruption and a coverup by the United States House of Representatives.

President Trump wrote: The Democrat I.T. scandal is a key to much of the corruption we see today. This book shows how right he is; in fact, it exposes three different parallel scandals:

1. The actual, alleged illegalities involving Democratic members of the House of Representatives, including the system that IT aide Imran Awan and his associates created for stealing money, equipment, and, potentially, information from the House.

2. The failure of the Republican leadership to investigate aggressively and expose the various aspects of the scandal.

3. The failure of the liberal media to cover what is possibly the biggest scandal in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives.

All three scandals would have remained hidden if it was not for the remarkable, persistent, and courageous work of one reporter: Luke Rosiak.

When I first noticed Lukes stories, I thought they made interesting assertions but were not a part of a particularly big scandal. The facts seemed so improbablemore than forty Democratic House members involved; the former chair of the Democratic National Committee protecting the alleged crooks less than a year after the DNC offices had been hacked under her watch; the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and possibly millions in wages for no-show work; a former McDonalds manager being paid by House Democrats as an IT specialist; five Pakistanis led by Imran Awan who had questionable business dealings in the U.S. and Pakistan; the list went on and on.

At first, I shrugged off the stories as the exaggerations of an ambitious reporter eager to make his name. After twenty years in the House, the last four as the first Republican Speaker in forty years, I concluded that I was curious but unconvinced. It all seemed too bizarre, too complicated, and too far-fetched.

After all, I reasoned, if the scandal was that big, the major media would be all over it, and the House Republicans would be demanding investigations, holding hearings, and turning it into a major liability for the Democrats in the 2016 (and 2018) elections. After all, a party that had almost one out of five of its elected members connected to a scandal would be a party on defense.

Instead, there was amazing silence.

Luke would find another amazing piece of evidence and write another remarkable story, yet nothing would happen.

The liberal media, busy chasing every possible rumor about President Trump, apparently had no time or energy to report on a scandal involving Democratic congressional members.

What finally convinced me to take this scandal seriously was Lukes persistent hard work that produced a steady and consistent drumbeat of new, fact-based stories with reputable sources. I asked my team at Gingrich Productions to pull together all of Lukes articles and I shared them with former House members who had been part of the Majority when I was Speaker. One of them, Congressman Bob Livingston, was a former prosecutor who read the material and said, Luke Rosiak has persevered successfully where traditional law enforcement dropped the ball. His conclusions are shocking.

Another House colleague of mine, Congressman Bob Walker commented, The U.S. House of Representatives was disgraced by the use of Pakistanis to run internal IT networks and then by the failure to hold those who hired the Pakistanis responsible for jeopardizing our national security and misusing taxpayer money.

Then I went to Capitol Hill and met with a group of Republican House members who were deeply frustrated by their leadership and were convinced that a lot of bad things had happenedand that the fix was in to protect the Awan associates and the Democrats.

Congressman Louie Gohmert wrote to me, Imran Awan seems to have been at the center of what was likely the biggest scandal in Congressional history. Yet, with the motto of House Republican elected leaders being, When theres no drama, we win, they were not only blatantly wrong, but they did enormous damage to the country. Luke Rosiak did an amazing job while being stonewalled by House leadership, as misrepresentations were apparently being made within the FBI to the attorney general about this whole matter.

Every American who is concerned about corruption in Washington should read Lukes book on what is possibly the largest scandal and coverup in the history of the United States House of Representatives.

Here are the facts.

There was a familial syndicate of five Pakistanis offering IT services to one-fifth of the House Democratic Party.

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former Democratic National Committee Chair, protected, defended, and continued to employ IT leader Imran Awan even after he had been removed from the House network. In fact, she was so protective of the IT scandal that at one point, Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, member of a committee in charge of the Capitol Polices budget, threatened the Capitol Police with consequences if they did not accede to her demands.

With more than forty House Democrats implicated in hiring or dealing with the Awan associates, they put such pressure on the House Republicans that the entire mess has, until now, been hushed up, covered up, and minimized.

Luke captures this entire disaster in two brutally honest paragraphs:

This is not a partisan book. What it exposes is the Uniparty a core of entrenched, establishment, career politicians and bureaucrats whose overriding goal is to preserve their power and the status quo.

Establishment Republicans might be more embarrassed by this book than Democrats. The Democrats portrayed here are scheming, dishonest, and cutthroat; but at least they are good at it. They work with their allies in the media and the bureaucracy to accomplish their self-serving goals with Machiavellian precision. The Republicans, meanwhile, are apathetic, myopic, gullible, and cowardly.

Based on Lukes reporting, I knew that House members, staff, the Awan associates, and others needed to be held accountable. I waited until after the 2018 electionto avoid any taint of politicsand then wrote to U.S. House of Representatives Inspector General Mike Ptasienski.

In my letter, I noted that:

As a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and a concerned private citizen, I am alarmed by the appearance of a cover-up of serious crimes committed by a former House employee and his associates, as well as, potentially, members of the House of Representatives themselves...

To help reassure the American people that our nations leaders stand for honesty, accountability, and transparency, this letter is a formal request to ask for the release of the two PowerPoint presentations given on September 20, 2016 and September 30, 2016 by your office to House leadership.

The presentations provide critical information pertaining to the possible invoice manipulation, equipment theft, illicit cyber activities, irregular cyber-related login and usage patterns, and outside storage of House data by Imran Awan and his associates.

The plea agreement for Mr. Awan, court appearances, and reported conversations with witnesses connected to the FBIs investigation of Awan and his associates activities suggests that the FBI (while working with the United States Capitol Police) and the Department of Justice have avoided conducting a thorough and meticulous investigation.