Schock and awe

No, the title doesn’t have a typo, it’s about the soon–to-be former Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) being forced to resign, effective March 31st after being caught playing fast and loose with public money. Ignoring his swagger as a thirty-three year old “rising star” hipster or more appropriately “shooting star” of the Republican Party he has burnt out, just like Icarus.

Politico (I have been featured in that news organization articles, and noted that they were very, very thorough) reported that Mr. Schock claimed reimbursable vehicle mileage far in excess of what his vehicle odometer showed.

Between that and his lavish spending on his congressional office furnishings and other ethics issues, he decided to duck out. Why? Apparently the Office of Congressional Ethics went after him, and he may have needed to spend a million dollars defending himself… so he thought that resigning was the “right” thing to do. Don’t worry for him; he has cleared the five year congressional pension mark, and he’ll get a lavish vested federal pension.

That said, it was wiser for him to quit and hope that the Office of Congressional Ethics will lose interest. I’m sure that the defense lawyers will be disappointed if they do.

The question now is whether this would be demi-god will be pursued for fraud by the Feds. As I’ve written before… “…we are a nation of laws, selectively applied.” If so, and they find evidence of fraud, he’ll be indicted on many, many counts and plea it down to one.

Let’s see what happens.