DEBBIE SPEAKS: DWS Makes First Public Comments as IT Scandal Heats Up

Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke out for the first time Thursday over the widening scandal surrounding her shady IT staffer; standing by her decision to keep Imran Awan on her payroll and saying she has to “stand up for what’s right.”

Speaking with the Sun Sentinel, Schultz was defiant against her critics who are openly calling for a thorough investigation between Awan and the former chair of the Democratic National Committee.

“I believe that I did the right thing, and I would do it again,” Wasserman Schultz told the newspaper. “There are times when you can’t be afraid to stand alone, and you have to stand up for what’s right. It would have been easier for me to just fire him.”

Schultz defended her decision to keep Awan on her payroll, despite being barred from the Capitol for months, saying “there are plenty of technological issues that an IT person can assist with. He didn’t have access to the network, but he was able to give us guidance.”

The former DNC boss also commented on the heated exchange between her and the Chief of Capitol Hill Police earlier this year, where she openly threatened the top cop with “consequences” for withholding her private laptop; a computer she now claims was never hers.

“This was not my laptop. I have never seen that laptop. I don’t know what’s on the laptop,” she said.