Main | Tuesday, March 17, 2015

BREAKING: Rep. Aaron Schock Resigns

Politico has the breaking news:
Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock is resigning his seat in Congress. The 33-year-old Republican has been dogged by questions about his spending of taxpayer and campaign dollars. On Monday afternoon, POLITICO posed a lengthy set of questions about charging the government and his campaign tens of thousands of dollars in questionable mileage reimbursements.

“Today, I am announcing my resignation as a Member of the United States House of Representatives effective March 31,” Schock said in a statement. “I do this with a heavy heart. Serving the people of the 18th District is the highest and greatest honor I have had in my life. I thank them for their faith in electing me and letting me represent their interests in Washington. I have given them my all over the last six years. I have traveled to all corners of the District to meet with the people I’ve been fortunate to be able to call my friends and neighbors.”
According to Schock, all these questions about his luxurious lifestyle have proven to be too much of a distraction to him to properly serve his constituents. Uh huh.

UPDATE: A revelation made earlier today may have been the final straw.
Schock billed the federal government and his campaign for logging roughly 170,000 miles on his personal car between January 2010 and July 2014. But when he sold that Chevrolet Tahoe in July 2014, it had only roughly 80,000 miles on the odometer, according to public records obtained by POLITICO under Illinois open records laws. The documents, in other words, indicate he was reimbursed for 90,000 miles more than his car was ever driven. When Schock transferred the SUV to an Illinois dealership in 2014, it had 81,860 miles on the odometer, the documents show. However, between January 2010 and the end of July 2014, he billed the federal government for 123,131 miles driven in his personal vehicle. During the same time period, the Republican billed his “Schock for Congress” campaign account and GOP Generation Y Fund, his leadership political action committee, for another 49,388 miles. Altogether, Schock sought reimbursement for 172,520 miles on his car, despite the fact that he signed documents that certified the vehicle traveled less than half that distance.
That's about $50,000 in extra reimbursements.

RELATED: Schock hasn't spoken on the House floor in over a month. Here's his final speech, which was delivered in mid-February to an apparently empty chamber.

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