All he needs are some tasty waves and a good attorney

Super-sexy former Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Guyville) was indicted by the Justice Department Thursday in what Politico called "a stunning, 24-count criminal indictment," although we'll assume that for once in his life, "stunning" referred more to the scope of Schock's alleged criminality, not his amazing sense of style. Schock's charges include tax fraud, filing false statements and false income tax returns, and theft of government funds, plus being unbelievably tacky in getting caught.

Federal prosecutors allege that Schock pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in improper mileage reimbursements, camera equipment, and proceeds from selling tickets to the World Series and Super Bowl. Schock even used a front corporation to make money from an annual constituent "fly-in," the indictment states.

Damn, looks like he was just a few years too early for the Trump administration. Does this Aaron Schock guy have a charitable foundation? How about a "university"?

Schock's attorney, whose name really is "George Terwilliger," insists the alleged abuses of power were merely the result of sloppy bookkeeping, and that Schock had been forced out of office by meanypants media reports portraying him as a spoiled greedhead, the poor fellow. Jeez, can't a guy make the occasional rounding error -- like falsely claiming $138,663 in mileage reimbursements for his personal vehicle or fleet of Bentleys or whatever -- without people thinking he's doing crimes? He only claimed reimbursements for 150,000 fictional miles, after all, which is just a tad over six times the circumference of the planet, but only a bit over halfway to the moon. Terwilliger also hinted darkly that Schock was the victim of political retribution, because he was simply too awesome for his enemies to allow to succeed.

So what other fun scams is Schock accused of running out of his Downton Abbey themed office?

• Schock allegedly invited constituents to swing by Washington for a "fly-in" event, charging a fee for their visits and then having a friend stash the cash in a secret Florida bank account.
• He charged his own business $11,000 for "services rendered," then sent the money to his home in Illinois, allegedly.
• Allegedly, when Schock was flying on credit card express points from Washington to Europe but had a flight delay in getting to DC, he chartered a plane from Illinois to Dulles, then charged his campaign for the $8,000 that cost.
• Personal items, allegedly? Sure, why allegedly not! He's accused of using taxpayers' money to cover car payments and purchases of camera equipment, which he got reimbursed as "multimedia services" for his congressional needs.
• Let's not forget that alleged payment of $6000 as a "bonus" to his chief of staff -- with whom he lived, which seems thrifty -- paid for by allegedly laundering the alleged money through his alleged executive assistant. Even so, he ended up owing the chief of staff rent money. Allegedly.
• Schock, it is alleged, bought tickets to big-time sportsball events like the Super Bowl and World Series with money from his campaign account, then sold the tickets to brokers and pocketed the profits. In one alleged case, he didn't even bother reimbursing the campaign account for the initial outlay. He (allegedly) made tens of thousands of dollars on the deals.
• In what has to be the most bizarre allegation, Schock is said to have informed an unidentified staff member they were facing an investigation. The staffer ran up nearly $10,000 in legal fees, paid for by his or her father, then Schock said there was no investigation after all, paid the staffer's father $7,500 of Schock's own money, then reimbursed himself for the $7,500, billing it as "PAC legal fees." We don't even see how he made a profit on that one, but maybe the point was to teach the aide a lesson about trusting beautiful liars.

Doesn't this man sound like he was made to run an agency in the Trump administration? We are kidding, of course! Any positions that might be good for making a buck will go to Trump family members! They might hire him as an advisor, though, and then stiff him come payday.

[Politico / Sun-Times]