If this is confusing, take that as a good sign. It’s a signal that you don’t spend your days either at one of the agencies which are now forced to watch Fox News 24/7, or down one of the deepest holes of 4Chan.
Who is Awan? That would be Imran Awan, a former IT assistant for members of Congress. In the summer of 2017, Awan was arrested at Dulles while trying to fly to Pakistan. He was charged with bank fraud and with “false statements on a loan or credit application” after taking out loans totaling $238,000 and shipping the money to relatives in Pakistan. Since then, the only thing that’s happened in the case appears to be that trial has been pushed back several months, after attorneys scrabbled over access to computers and documents. It was recently announced that he would agree to a plea. It’s a story that’s so far down the food chain, it hasn’t managed a blip on the radar for months … except on Fox News.
On Fox, Awan is a star. His story has been brought up again, and again and again. That’s because on Fox News, Imran Awan isn’t some IT guy who scammed a bank loan by inflating his home equity (which is, actually, what he did). He’s a guy who worked for Debbie Wasserman Schultz and is somehow connected to the “server” that Donald Trump claims the DNC is hiding from the FBI. His upcoming plea deal—in which he will be charged with, shockingly, attempting to scam a bank loan by inflating the equity in his home—is regarded by Fox “analysts” as mere cover for some vast, deep conspiracy between the Justice Department and Wasserman Shultz in which they will allow Awan to cover up doing … something for Democrats. And having … something to do with the DNC server. Because … spies. No, really. Spies. They’re everywhere.
In short, Imran Awan is the IT version of Seth Rich, a DNC employee who was murdered by a robber, but whose tragic death was then made much more tragic as he was re-cast in an alt-Reich conspiracy theory involving how DNC emails were “really” not stolen by Russia at all, but intentionally leaked to show complicity inside the organization. Fox News played a huge role in promoting and disseminating these lies, including Trump’s night time chat partner Sean Hannity.
The entire depth of the Awan story appears to be something less than the film that makes colors appear on top of a mud puddle. But that hasn’t stopped Fox News from turning it into yet more Seth Rich, Pizzagate, Memogate, Spygate “proof” that there’s a Deep State conspiracy against Trump. They’ve turned the Awan story into a “Cyber Breach” that—yes, once again—claims that the DNC emails weren’t stolen by Russia. Legal aces like Louie Gohmert have even married the Awan story into their evidence that Robert Mueller is part of the scheme. And the best part is, because Awan is a Pakistani-American, though a US citizen, and because he’s pleading to an actual crime, Fox News will never have to apologize—as they eventually did to the family of Seth Rich.