Former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz subverted our democracy and interfered in the 2016 election in ways Moscow could only dream of, yet while Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues to chase Russian phantoms, the case against Wasserman Schultz and Imran Awan, the IT director she and other Congressional Democrats employed, continues to drag on despite overwhelming evidence of criminality and clear national security implications.

Schultz was forced to step down after hacked emails revealed that she and the DNC had their finger on the scales and actively worked to defeat Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries in favor of Hillary Clinton.

She has been forced to step aside after a leak of internal DNC emails showed officials actively favoring Hillary Clinton during the presidential primary and plotting against Clinton’s rival, Bernie Sanders…

The Sanders campaign has long claimed that the party establishment had its “finger on the scales” during the bitter and surprisingly long primary, but the embarrassing new revelations proved to be the final straw for a figure who had been a lightning rod for tension within the party.

What the Democrats accused the Russians of doing, Debbie Wasserman Shultz’s DNC was actively doing. And considering what we have found out about the Pakistanis, not the Russians, that were brought in to run their IT operation, it makes sense as to why the DNC refused to turn over their servers to FBI forensic investigators. What else where they trying to hide?

One thing they tried to hide was Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s curious relationship with Pakistani Imran Awan.

Awan was the top IT aide to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The FBI reportedly “seized smashed computer hard drives” from his home. He was “arrested trying to flee to Pakistan after wiring almost $300,000 to the country,” according to The Daily Caller, which has owned the story because it does actual news reporting.

Here’s an amazing paragraph from the Caller: “Awan and members of his family received $4 million from the Democratic congressmen they were working for since 2010. Wasserman Schultz has been especially uncooperative with the probe into her staffers and even threatened the Capitol Police chief for gathering evidence. She refused to fire Awan until after he was arrested, even though Capitol Police had already revoked Awans’ access to the congressional IT system in February in relation to a major security breach.” ($4 million, and you wonder where your tax dollars go.)

Like Al Capone and tax evasion, Imran Awan was charged with bank fraud regarding the millions he was paid and handled with his family. But the court case against him has mysteriously been delayed a seventh time. Is a plea deal in the works against Wasserman Schultz or is this just another case of the criminality can being kicked down the road? At issue may be that laptop with initials “REPDWS” on it:

The federal court case against Imran Awan, a former information technology (IT) administrator who worked for dozens of House Democrats, was delayed again on Tuesday to July 6.

This is the 7th time the court hearing has been postponed since November last year. Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, have been charged with bank fraud.

Many of the delays appear to be related to a laptop that Awan left in a decommissioned phone booth in a House building in April last year. The laptop, which had the username “RepDWS,” was accompanied by several copies of ID cards belonging to Awan and a letter he wrote to prosecutors.

Awan had been employed by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) -- whose initials (RepDWS) were on the laptop -- since 2005…

After the laptop was found by Capitol Police, Wasserman Schultz attempted for months to have the laptop returned to her, including hiring an outside lawyer to prevent prosecutors from looking at it.

During a May 18 hearing, Wasserman Schultz told the Capitol Police chief there would be “consequences” if the laptop was not returned to her.

Awan was allowed to have security access to House servers and freely took advantage to loot them of files and information, some of which was undoubtedly classified:

Alleged theft of congressional equipment, massive data breaches of Congress members’ emails, likely espionage and more are all wrapped up in this case that involves data from 40 or more Democratic members of Congress…

Sources also say that investigators were particularly interested in whether anyone else in the congressional offices that all of these IT aides worked for was involved in alleged improper activity. This might include Rep. Wasserman Schultz, who was the Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair when she employed Awan. It might also include former Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., who employed Awan when Becerra was chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. Becerra is now California attorney general.

“The House Office of Inspector General tracked the Awans’ network usage and found that a massive amount of data was flowing from the (congressional) networks,” said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa. “Over 5,700 logins by the five Awan associates were discovered on a single server within the House, the server of the Democratic Caucus Chairman, then Rep. Xavier Becerra of California. Up to 40 or more members of Congress had all of their data moved out their office servers and onto the Becerra server without their knowledge or consent.”

One suspects that if the case involved 40 or more Republican members of Congress things might be moving along more speedily. As it is, this may be the third time a curious relationship has jeopardized U.S. national security while mucking up our political and legal systems. FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page gleefully pursued a relationship as they sought an ”insurance policy” against Donald Trump assuming the presidency. Senate intelligence committee aide James Wolfe was caught leaking documents to New York Times national security reporter Ali Watkins, with whom he had a relationship. And now we have Wasserman Schultz and Awan’s curious relationship:

Even after getting fired by some members of Congress for stealing computers and data systems, Florida’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair, kept him and let him have access to her emails and files as well as the password to the electronic device she used for DNC business. At one point, Awan had access to the computers of dozens of members of Congress, including those on the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees. Judicial Watch has launched an investigation and is pursuing public records.

The government’s bizarre failure to prosecute Awan for the national security violations he appears to have committed points to a political coverup that’s dangerous, craven and borders on traitorous. A House Office of Inspector General investigation determined earlier this year that Awan and his relatives committed numerous violations of House security policies, including logging into the House Democratic Caucus server thousands of times without authorization.

Interestingly, as the Daily Caller reports, Imran Awan’s lawyer, Chris Gowen,  is a long-time associate of both Bill and Hillary Clinton who has done work for the Clinton Foundation, used as a pay-for-play cash cow for the entire Clinton family. Interestingly, Gowan has raised the specter of anti-Muslim sentiment in the Awan case:

Chris Gowen, Imran Awan’s lawyer, is a long-time campaigner for former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…

Gowen described Awan’s arrest as “clearly a right-wing media-driven prosecution by a United States Attorney’s Office that wants to prosecute people for working while Muslim.”

Gowen is a founding partner of Gowen, Rhoades, Winograd and Silva law firm, with offices in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Penn.

His official bio on the firm’s web site notes that he “left the Public Defender’s office to work for former President William Jefferson Clinton and then-Senator Hillary Clinton. Chris was a fact checker for President Clinton’s memoir, My Life.”

“He also served as a traveling aid for President Clinton’s national and international trips. Chris finished his tenure with the Clintons by directing the advance operations for then-Senator Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign.”

This is just one of many shoes waiting to drop from the Democrat’s centipede of corruption. Crimes were committed here, possibly including Wasserman Schultz and leading Democrats. Yet a cover-up could be in the works. Let’s not take our eves off this corner of the swamp.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.