Fox’s Napolitano pushes another baseless claim: A congressional IT staffer was “selling” information abroad

Andrew Napolitano: Imran Awan, who was arrested for bank fraud, was "selling [information] to foreign nationals and foreign intelligence services”

Written by Media Matters Staff

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Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano claimed that a recently-arrested former congressional information technology (IT) staffer was “selling [information] to foreign nationals and foreign intelligence services” during his tenure on Capitol Hill. There is no evidence to back up Napolitano’s claim. Napolitano said that Imran Awan, the former IT specialist who worked for several House Democrats and who was arrested for bank fraud, used his access to congressional computers and was “gathering information and selling it to foreign nationals and foreign intelligence services.” Napolitano’s claim appears to be echoed by the chronically wrong pro-Trump website The Gateway Pundit, but does not appear to be supported by any other independent news outlet. Others at Fox and in fringe media have pushed conspiracy theories about Awan's arrest.

This is not the first time Napolitano has been caught pushing dubious claims and conspiracy theories. In March, Napolitano came under fire for pushing the debunked claim that then-President Barack Obama used the British intelligence community to wiretap Trump Tower during the 2016 election. He has also suggested that the government lied about the cause of the September 11 attacks and suggested that Obama surveilled the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. From the July 31 edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom:

ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Ms. -- Congresswoman [Debbie] Wasserman Schultz, while she was a congresswoman from Florida and the chair of the Democratic National Committee, employed, at government expense, in her Washington office an I.T. specialist who, it turns out, was gathering information and selling it to foreign nationals and foreign intelligence services. This, of course, is a felony. As he was selling real estate in the United States and was attempting to flee to Pakistan, he was arrested for failure to report these financial sales. What Congressman [Ron] DeSantis [(R-FL)] is saying that financial stuff is bad but that's just the tip of the iceberg. What we really need to know is how did this person damage the national security of the United States by selling information from the Wasserman Schultz emails to foreign nationals, and what did he sell? And then -- and this is very intriguing, Bill -- what did the former chair of the Democratic National Committee and congresswoman from Florida know, if anything, about him and about it?