Rep. Yvette Clarke's former chief of staff "effectively dismissed" hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of missing equipment for two now fired IT staffers who are suspected of stealing congressional equipment, The Daily Caller News Foundation reports.
Brothers Imran and Abid Awan worked as IT aides for dozens of congressional offices, most prominently former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Sometime around February of 2016, one of the brothers alerted Clarke's then-chief of staff Shelley Davis of the $120,000 in missing equipment, according to an unnamed House official with knowledge of the situation.
Clarke's chief of staff proceeded to file a form writing off the loss, which amounts to one-tenth of her office's annual budget. The official told the Daily Caller that requesting to sign off such a large amount is "way outside any realm of normalcy."
The missing equipment included a number of iPhones and iPads, according to the official, and would have been billed under Clarke's former chief of staff, who held that position from 2010 until Feb. 2016. The congresswoman's spokesperson would not confirm to the Daily Caller which staffer signed the form, why Abid remained employed for months after the equipment was lost, or why no one alerted authorities of the hundreds of thousands in missing materials.
The Daily Caller notes that legislators can be held responsible for the loss of equipment from their offices, and that the write-off process exists for "minor, unintentional discrepancies," such as misplacing an old phone.
The Awans, including their brother Jamal and Imran's wife Hina Alvi, are under investigation for the IT work, and are suspected of equipment theft and improperly accessing emails and files of members of Congress.
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