Aaron Schock Finally Comes Out-- But Still Swears He's Never Seen Downton Abbey

Aaron has a lovely belt collection and a repulsively homophobic voting record

You can't have been a regular DWT reader if yesterday's exit from the closet by Aaron Schock was a surprise to you. Aaron was the out-est closet case in Congress when he was serving there. It's nice he didn't wait for National Coming Out Day (October 11) to finally embrace-- publicly-- his homosexuality. Is he still going to be a Republican? And when will Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Patrick McHenry, Adrian Smith, Jason Smith, Ben Ray Lujan... come out? After they leave office? And if the rumors are true about Gym Jordan and Matt Gaetz, please, guys, do not tell anyone... ever; just stay in the closet.

Here's Aaron's exit statement:

I am gay.

For those who know me and for many who only know of me, this will come as no surprise.  For the past year, I have been working through a list of people who I felt should finally hear the news directly from me before I made a public statement. I wanted my mother, my father, my sisters, my brother, and my closest friends to hear it from me first.

The fact that I am gay is just one of those things in my life in need of explicit affirmation, to remove any doubt and to finally validate who I am as a person. In many ways I regret the time wasted in not having done so sooner.

I offer my story as one person’s experience. I’ve come to believe it is, in some respects, just a more public version of a difficult and  ultimately, now optimistic, journey familiar to many LGBTQ people.

My story starts in the rural Midwest, as part of a family centered in a faith and its particular traditions. At the Apostolic Christian Church where we belonged, we were enthusiastic regulars. My parents did their best to raise me and my siblings according to biblical tenets as they understood them.

When our family moved from our farm in Minnesota to Peoria, Illinois, we wound up in one of the less rigid branches of our church.  So, while our previous congregation had, for example, considered watching TV to be sinfully idle, the Peoria branch let it slide.

In many ways, I thrived in this environment. It helped me to live with a feeling of purpose and taught me to try to treat others as I would want to be treated. Memorizing Bible verses, going to church camp, attending services at least twice a week-- that was my world.

I’m sure I knew other gay people in those years of growing up, but I don’t think any of us were aware of it. I understood that the teachings of my upbringing were pretty clear on the matter. Because of it, as I got  older and first felt myself drawn in the direction of my natural orientation, I didn’t want to think about it. I always preferred to force my thoughts in other directions, leaving a final answer about that for another day. To that end, it helped that I was also born a fairly goal-focused  personality, driven to succeed and to push myself in every way I knew how. My focus early in life was on getting a head start in business, purchasing my first piece of real estate while still in high school. But when my local school board blocked my attempts at early graduation, it’s that same drive that also pushed me to pursue elective office, first on the school board at 19, on to the Illinois legislature at 23, and in Congress at 27.

In spite of that success, or maybe because of it, I still lived a pretty sheltered life.

Arriving in Washington in 2009, as the youngest member of Congress, I received a  lot of attention. I confess to enjoying it, though in my case, the attention also glided toward speculation. I was a single guy, and people would comment on how I dressed, and about my preoccupation with physical fitness. Untruthful stories were written. Even years into my time in Washington, I was still naïve enough to wonder why the news media would run with an utterly false story about me and a show I’d  never even heard of, and still haven’t seen, Downton Abbey.

It took me a while to figure out that it was really just the media’s own way in which they got to say that about  me in print… to tie me to a stereotype. In fact, if you want to learn something about the “woke” media, Google my name and consider how  prominently that fabricated lie, still without even a single source to back it up, will feature in stories about me by people who otherwise  call themselves journalists. It was another way, albeit more sophisticated, to be teased about being gay. A dog whistle.

Once in Congress, I did like I’d always done and threw myself into the distraction of work and what I once understood success to be. That included being responsive to the interests of the constituents in the  district that I served. Perhaps correctly, perhaps not, I assumed that revealing myself as their gay congressman would not go over well. I put my ambition over the truth, which not only hurt me, but others as well.

I also, in retrospect, realize that I was just looking for more excuses to buy time and avoid being the person I’ve always been.

I like to think I would have sorted all this out in the right way, had  circumstances allowed. As it turned out, the opportunity quickly  vanished in early 2015, when I found myself facing an array of false  charges involving office and campaign expenses. That ordeal quickly descended into a years-long struggle to clear my name, so all-consuming that I chose to resign from the House and devote myself almost full time to the effort.

Following my resignation, I was neither seeking nor holding elected office for the first time since my teens. Thinking I was out of the political spotlight made me much less worried about others knowing that I was gay. I truly wanted to tell my family and felt ready to do so, starting with Mom and Dad. But just as I felt comfortable enough to come out,  government prosecutors weaponized questions about my personal life and used innuendo in an attempt to cast me as a person of deceptive habit and questionable character. My family, friends, and former employees were subpoenaed and asked prying questions about my personal and dating life.

Unfortunately for prosecutors, the most sensational thing they learned about my personal life was that I didn’t have much of one while I was in office. But the government’s tactics in prosecuting my case made it obvious that coming out would be better discussed after the charges against me were dropped. It was ironic and painful; just as I was finally ready to come out of the closet, it felt as though someone had locked the door.

For all the grief that these events brought into my life, I was confident that the truth would win out and that I would be free to share it. I refused any offer of a plea bargain and insisted on going to trial. The trial never happened because, last March, government prosecutors asked the judge to dismiss the indictment and all of the charges against me.

After the four years of legal hell finally ended this past March, the joy of vindication was met with the reality of facing my truth with those closest to me. I made plans to drive to my mother’s for Easter holiday and tell her what I had so long avoided.

In many ways my mind at that point was also oriented towards making up for lost time, socially. I got tickets for the Coachella Music Festival with friends. A few days later, I got into my car, with all the fear and anxiety that I suppose many feel when they finally head off to have that long-avoided conversation with their family. I think it would be fair to say, life intervened.

Halfway through the trip, I spoke with my mother. News broke of my weekend at Coachella. Pictures online made clear what I was en route to tell my mother in person. She told me to turn around and go back to LA. I wasn’t welcome at home for Easter.    To characterize some of these conversations with my family in general, it’s fair to say it has not been a case of instant acceptance and understanding. What I had to share was unwelcome news to every single person in my family, out of the blue in some cases, and was met with sadness, disappointment, and unsympathetic citations to Scripture.  It hurt to hear all this, to say the least. What I had feared from many of them had come to pass. My family had always been my closest friends and biggest supporters, through thick and thin. And I say, not to arouse sympathy, but hopefully, rather, understanding, I felt fairly alone.

My approach since has been rooted in an appreciation for how long it took me to overcome my own resistance to being gay. As much as I would like for my family to quickly change about the way they view it, I’ve come to  terms with the fact that it might take my loved ones more time than I would like. And I realize some might never come around.

I do hold out hope that, over time, my family will come to accept me as I am. I remind them that I am still the same Aaron they have always known, the one they were so proud of not long ago. I realize that, having gone through a tough and lonely career ordeal, I’ve come to need them only more.

While feeling at times like my mother’s fallen star, I’ve also been cautioned by my fellow gays active in politics about what to expect from the LGBTQ public. Where was I, they will ask, when I was in a position to help advance issues important to gay Americans?

No one gets to choose when we learn our lives’ big lessons. Mine have been no different. In 2008, as a Republican running in a conservative district, I took the same position on gay marriage held by my party’s nominee, John McCain.  That position against marriage equality, though, was also then held by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as well.

That fact doesn’t make my then position any less wrong, but it’s sometimes easy to forget that it was leaders of both parties who for so long wrongly understood what it was to defend the right to marry.

As is the case throughout most of human history, those who advance the greatest social change never hold elected office. I can live openly now as a gay man because of the extraordinary, brave people who had the courage to fight for our rights when I did not: community activists, leaders, and ordinary LGBT folks. Gay bloggers who rallied people to our cause. I recognize this even in the face of the intense and sometimes vicious criticism that I’ve received from those same people.

The truth is that if I were in Congress today, I would support LGBTQ rights in every way I could. I realize that some of my political positions run very much counter to the mainstream of the LGBTQ movement, and I respect them for those differences. I hope people will allow for me the same.

To that end, I hope that others can respect that for me being gay has not required stepping into some entirely new belief system, disconnected from every other facet of my life’s experiences. I haven’t overcome one kind of repression for another.

Looking ahead, I hope that you’ll find me reflecting credit on the gay  community-- diverse in its thinking, growing in confidence, gaining in  equality and acceptance. I’m a freer person, happy to let go of problems that really should never have been so problematic to begin with. Life is better with nothing to fear or hide. Whatever comes next for me, at least the story will be authentic, and good things usually follow from that.

I also hope that in sharing my story it might help shine a light for  young people, raised the way I was, looking for a path out of darkness and shame. And maybe aspects of my journey will also give their parents  and family some pause before they decide how they’re going to react to the eventual news. The battle for equality is won as hearts and minds once opposed to us are faced with a different set of facts than those they were taught.

This journey has taught me a valuable lesson: that, whether you are gay or straight, it’s never too late to be authentic and true to yourself.

As for my family, I still get occasional emails trying to sell me on  conversion therapy, but recently at our relative’s wedding, my mother told me that if there is anyone special in my life, she wants to meet  them. I’m optimistic about the future and ready to write the next chapter of my life.

Homophobia Is Still A Problem-- And Not Exclusively In The GOP... Meet Status Quo Joe, Who's No Harvey Milk

Biden's never passin' that torch voluntarily
-by Nancy Ohanian

Unlike most Americans, I didn’t first hear of Status Quo Joe when Obama used him to balance his ticket— one black guy + one racist guy; one anti-war guy + one warmonger; one moderate + one conservative— in 2008. Nope I had been carefully following Biden’s ugly and always-repulsive political career since he was just some lowlife racist piece of dog crap in Delaware trying to kickstart a political career by campaigning against busing— exactly as Louise Day Hicks was doing in Boston and Bobbi Fiedler was doing in L.A., both of whom were elected to Congress, same as Joe Biden was. Hicks and Fiedler are still remembered, if at all, as vicious, destructive racists to this day. And even though they were reading and singing from the exact same hymnal as Biden, he was allowed to slide on the issue. I wonder why.

Biden was generally wrong about every important issue while he was in Congress— a dyed-in-the-wool conservative from head to toe, always one of the worst Democraps in the Senate, largely why Obama chose him. One of the way I also recall Biden was as a homophobic asshole. He made me cringe watching the debate last week when he tried claiming— as he always does— that he was the father of the gay civil rights movement. He disrespected gays and always voted against the LGBTQ while he was in the Senate. Example: in 1966 the Delaware asshole, who wants us to think of him as another Harvey Milk, voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. You remember that one, right? It not only defined marriage as exclusively between a man and woman, Joe “States’ Rights” Biden backed a toxic provision that forbade states from recognizing same sex marriages. So then, just a little over a decade later, when Obama needed a trial balloon to see if a more pro-gay sentiment was acceptable, the administration sent Biden out to say he was for marriage equality. So was the public and soon after, Obama came out and said it too. But giving Biden credit? How is that different for giving Trump credit for putting out any of the fires he started?




On Saturday, Biden— still a reflexive homophobe at heart— was caught at a fundraiser in Seattle, hosted by a foolish wealthy gay man, making a clueless homophobic remark. I hope McKinsey Pete does a Kamala on him in the next debate! Joseph Simonson caught him in the act. “Biden,” he wrote, “drew jeers from a group of his wealthy donors Saturday evening after he asserted that public displays of homophobia were acceptable as recently as 2014. Addressing 50 guests at the Seattle home of public relations executive Roger Nyhus, the former vice president claimed businessmen making ‘fun of a gay waiter’ was routinely acceptable. Those remarks sparked outcries from the audience, who yelled ‘Not in Seattle!’ Others disputed that casual acts of bigotry such as the kind Biden described would not be met with objections.”

“Today, that person would not be invited back," Biden, 76, added.

Much of Biden's speech thereafter, according to his presidential campaign's pool report, were indecipherable due to the fact that he spoke so softly.

One can imagine what circles Biden was running in in 2014 where it was perfectly acceptable to make homophobic cracks. Not mine, that’s for sure. Yesterday, Axios reported on how Trumpanzee plans to re-energize evangelicals. Pretending Aaron Schock is a Democrat? Reenacting one of Biden’s 2014 dinner parties where everyone sits around making fun of gay people?

The RNC is also planning to host voter registration drives at churches in battleground states such as Ohio, Nevada and Florida, where they'll promote Trump's record on socially conservative issues.

"Getting this right and making sure we're maximizing their energy is huge," said Ralph Reed, a longtime Trump ally and head of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. Reed's group pledged this week to spend $50 million on get-out-the-vote efforts and register approximately 1 million new evangelical voters in battleground states.

And it's not like Aaron Schock was the only closeted self-loathing gay man in Congress-- let's not forget, for example, Patrick McHenry (NC) and Jason Smith (MO), who are still putting one over on their hapless rural constituents

Gay Republican Congressman Suddenly And Inexplicably Let Off With A Slap On The Wrist

Disgraced former congressman Aaron Schock has been successful in dragging out his corruption case for 4 years. He kept trying to get the case dismissed and the courts kept telling him no. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court declined to get involved, refusing to overrule the lower courts. It looked like the end of the road for a congressman who was desperate not to wind up as anyone's bitch in prison. WLS, the ABC affiliate in Chicago, reported this morning that something may be about to change drastically in the case.

The one-time rising star of the Illinois Republican party resigned his Peoria Congressional seat in 2015 on accusations of misspending campaign funds on lavish personal expenses. Since the beginning the case has been laden with problems and it ended up being moved from Urbana to Chicago.

Now it appears there may be a dramatic shift in things. According to experts a possible scenario is that the government would reduce some of the 22 felonies to misdemeanors and that other charges would be dropped-offering a way out for Schock, that conceivably could allow him a return to politics.

And before noon-- BOOM! Reporting for the Chicago Tribune, Jason Meisner wrote that "In a surprise move for a high-profile public corruption case, federal prosecutors in Chicago have agreed to drop all charges against former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock if he pays back money he owes to the Internal Revenue Service and his campaign fund. The stunning deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, was announced Wednesday during what was supposed to be a routine status hearing for Schock before U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly... The bombshell development in Schock’s case comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up his appeal. His lawyers had unsuccessfully tried to get the indictment thrown out, saying the charges were based on ambiguous House rules in violation of separation-of-power clauses in the Constitution." So far no one knows what strings were pulled where to make the feds drop what looked like an open-and-shut case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik Hogstrom called the deal with Schock a "fair and sensible resolution to this matter," claiming, incongruously that Schock is taking "appropriate public accountability for his conduct." The feds have been working this case for four years and all Hogstrom was willing to say was that Schock had no prior criminal record and that he did, after all, resign from Congress.

According to the agreement, Schock, 37, must pay $42,000 to the IRS and $68,000 to his congressional campaign fund. If he does so-- and stays out of any new trouble-- prosecutors would drop all felony counts against Schock, leaving him with a clean record.

As part of the deal, Schock’s campaign committee, Schock for Congress, will plead guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor count of failing to properly report expenses.

Kennelly approved the plea deal after prosecutors said they had taken a fresh look at the charges and decided this would be a “fair and just” outcome, especially given that Schock has no criminal record and resigned from public office.

Aaron's 2 big congressional crushes were Mikey Suits (R-NY), pictured here, and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)

Schock, once considered a rising star in the Republican Party, resigned in 2015 amid the federal investigation into his use of his campaign funds and House allowance to pay personal expenses ranging from an extravagant remodeling of his Washington office inspired by the British television series Downton Abbey to flying on a private plane to attend a Chicago Bears game.

Schock was charged in a 24-count indictment in November 2016 with wire fraud, mail fraud, theft of government funds, making false statements, filing false reports with federal election officials and filing false tax returns. A judge later dismissed two of those counts.

The former congressman had been scheduled to go to trial June 10 in federal court in Chicago. The case had been reassigned to Kennelly last August from the U.S. District Court in Urbana after the judge there was accused of improper conduct in an unrelated case.

Wedding bells for Schock and British Olympic driver Tom Daley?

The deferred prosecution could mean that Schock’s once-promising political career isn’t necessarily over since he avoid a felony conviction.

Schock was crowing like a mad man already, claiming that this "outcome validates this case should have never been started in the first place... It should not have taken four years, two U.S. attorney’s offices, three judges and millions of dollars in costs to the taxpayers and myself to come to this conclusion. Justice wielded irresponsibly is wrong, and it puts our constitutional rights at risk." This is what happens when congressional criminals are let off with a slap on the wrist. And, yes, he can run for office again.

Illinois Republican Aaron Schock Isn't On Trial For Being Gay But His Defense Team Sure Wants To Make It Sound That Way

Last night we mentioned that Mafia thug "Mikey Suits" Grimm wants back in Congress and is plotting a primary challenge to Staten Island incumbent Dan Donovan. Though Grimm's best remembered romantic trysts may be when he disappeared into the Owl's Head toilet with some randy drunk woman and when he was dating homophobic psycho Tulsi Gabbard, there was always chatter in DC about how notorious GOP closet queen Aaron Schock had a major crush on Grimm. And they never got to be roomies in prison! Grimm already served 7 months and is out and Schock, also forced to resign from Congress like Grimm, is still fighting prison time... bigly.

Last week, Peoria Journal Star columnist Phil Luciano asked "How weird is the Aaron Schock case getting?" and answered: "Very." Schock was warned by his chief of staff to stop acting so gay, although no one mentioned the rumors about him on his knees in the congressional gym in front of a certain blue-eyed Mafia congressman (from Staten Island).

Schock’s sexuality has always been the subject of snort-and-giggle speculation on the fringe of Schock World. Now it’s dead-center bombast, at the core of his attorneys’ charges of prosecutorial malfeasance. Among other allegations, Schock’s lawyers say the government went on a gay-baiting witch hunt to try to make him look bad in front of a federal grand jury.

...Federal agents questioned Steven Shearer, Schock’s first chief of staff. According to the filings, Shearer said, “Schock was upset with the blogs and media comments about his sexuality. Schock denied the allegations and resented the accusations.”

So, as a top aide, Shearer offered stern advice. According to the documents, “Shearer believes that Schock did things that seemed ‘gay.’ Shearer criticized Schock on behaving in a way that would make people question his sexuality. Shearer has no evidence of Schock being ‘gay.’”

The documents don’t say how Schock might’ve “seemed gay.” Downton Abbey decor? The teal belt? Shirtless poses? Ariana Grande post? Gym fanaticism? Maybe.

For all we know, maybe Shearer and other aides further admonished Schock to avoid watching Ellen, plucking his eyebrows or toting tiny dogs. After all, paparazzi are positively everywhere.

If that sounds stereotypical, that’s the point. Do any of these labels really matter? Apparently, yes, to Schock & Co.-- not just back then but apparently now. Though Schock’s attorneys vilify prosecutors’ sexuality inquiries as “irrelevant” and “offensive,” they also seem to go to great length to stress Schock’s refutation of any hint of gayness.

The judge will decide whether Schock’s sexuality has any bearing on the criminal case. But apparently his sexuality had a big bearing on his political machinations.

Again, like I said, weird.

The legitimate news point here is that in his latest desperate attempt to worm out of going prison, Schock's high-priced lawyers are now accusing federal investigators of prosecutorial misconduct, "alleging that they have improperly probed into personal details of Schock’s life by asking witnesses about his sex life and if he is gay."

Schock was indicted in November on 24 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, theft of government funds, making false statements, filing false reports with federal election officials, and six counts of filing false tax returns. He has been under investigation since resigning from Congress in March 2015 following questions over whether he had violated spending and ethics rules.

In the course of that investigation, other red flags were raised regarding Schock’s spending decisions, including expensive trips abroad with a private photographer, tickets to concerts and sporting events, and the redecoration of his congressional office that was reportedly based on the PBS drama Downton Abbey.

But now Schock’s lawyers are crying foul, alleging that federal investigators have probed into personal details of his life that are not germane to the charges against him or his spending habits, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

In a memo filed in federal court, Schock’s legal team alleges that the “prosecutor and agents have dug into every aspect of Mr. Shock’s life by any means necessary. No topic has been off limits. The federal government has even delved, repeatedly, into the most intimate details of his life, including repeated inquiries to witnesses into who he has slept with and whether he is gay.

“The prosecutor and federal agents have repeatedly asked irrelevant and highly invasive questions about Mr. Schock’s sexual orientation and relationships,” his lawyers write. “The government has investigated nearly every facet of Mr. Schock’s professional, political, and personal life. This even includes his sex life.

“It is no secret that there has long been speculative gossip in the media about Mr. Schock’s sexual orientation. For no apparent reason, the government has felt itself compelled to investigate this too. Indeed, from the very inception of this investigation, the government has discussed with witnesses whether Mr. Schock is gay, whether he really ‘dated’ his ex-girlfriend (a highly accomplished diplomat and attorney), and whether he spent the night or shared hotel rooms with her.

“The government’s inquiries into Mr. Schock’s sexuality and romantic relationships were not just distasteful and offensive. They were prejudicial.”

Prosecutors have never said that Schock’s sexual predilections were related to any of the charges against him. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of Illinois, which is prosecuting Schock, has declined to comment on the allegations.

Schock’s trial is scheduled for January 2018 before a federal court judge in Urbana, Ill. His lawyers contend that the prosecution intimidated witnesses and exposed them to “false information” about Schock. They also allege that federal investigators improperly turned a junior staffer in Schock’s Peoria office into a “confidential informant” who secretly recorded him and stole documents. As such, they argue, the judge should throw out any evidence against Schock that the staffer provided to the government. All the local papers are buzzing about the former congressman's gayness, although "officially" Schock is still just looking for the right woman even if he's basically seen as Washington's Loras Tyrell, who confessed during season 6 of Game of Thrones, just before being killed off and eliminated from the series, "I have laid with other men, including the traitor Renly Baratheon. I’m guilty of depravity, dishonesty, profligacy, and arrogance." Schock hasn't "confessed" yet but he's certainly playing some kind of gay card for all its worth to keep out of prison. Jim Dey:

[C]ourt records demonstrate clearly that investigators were extremely interested in learning the answer to one of the big questions surrounding Schock during his meteoric rise in local, state and federal politics.

"It is no secret that there has long been speculative gossip in the media about Mr. Schock's sexual orientation. For no apparent reason, the government has felt itself compelled to investigate this, too," Schock lawyers state.

Indeed, the subject of the public-relations problem that morphed into the federal investigation stemmed from speculation surrounding Schock's sexuality as it related to office decoration.

...Questions about his decorating tastes quickly expanded into how he had arranged to pay for the redecoration. Eventually, there was a flurry of stories raising questions about Schock's mileage expenses and how he spent campaign funds.

...Bryan Rudolph, Schock's former district manager and a confidential source in his office, told investigators that he had "heard gossip that 'something was going on' with Shea Ledford... (confidential source) believed Schock's ex-girlfriend was not a 'real girlfriend' and was a 'beard'"-- a reference to a person who helps someone conceal their sexual orientation by pretending to be involved with them.

"As with so many other things, the government's (confidential informant) was wrong. But that did not stop the government from trying to prove him right for the next two years," Schock's lawyers state.

...If Schock was homosexual, investigators wanted evidence to prove it. They asked his chief of staff, Steven Shearer, about it. Shearer noted that Schock was angry about suggestions that he is a homosexual and that he advised Schock to stop "behaving in a way that would make people question his sexuality."

Shearer told investigators he has "no evidence of Schock being gay."

One Schock staff member, Jonathon Link, said he decided to start arriving at events separately from Schock because of rumors that "I was like his personal companion or something like that."

"I was thinking about it, I was like, 'OK, if I'm going to be known as, like, Aaron's gay lover, I may not really want to be seen with him anymore' because, you know, it's like ... obviously, like, for me, it's not true, but like now this rumor is starting to get out there," Link told a federal grand jury.

Schock is tentatively scheduled to go on trial in January on a variety of charges, including income-tax evasion and misusing public funds.

Schock's lawyers contend that the case against him is flawed because the constant questions about his sexuality exposed him to "salacious innuendo" that "reveal the government's malicious intent to impugn Mr. Schock's character."

Schock being sworn in with Link as his side

Sure, He's Guilty But Is Aaron Schock Being Railroaded?

I have to admit, I'm a huge fan of politicians going to prison. In fact, helping male sure Duke Cunningham wound up in prison was one of the reasons we started DWT originally. As woefully rare as it is, I love it when corrupt politicians get caught and see their miserable lives shattered and ruined and then wind up on a prison cell. Especially conservatives. And I was a fan of Aaron Schock's ruin over the last couple of years. This link includes the 2015-2017 posts. But there's a new twist in the twisted tale of poor Aaron.

Tuesday the Associated Press ran a wire story that the government spied on the congressman. It creeped me out. It sounds like one of his staffers,Bryan Rudolph, his Peoria district office manager, was persuaded to wear a wire and to steal "a trove of emails, credit card receipts and other documents that violated the now-indicted congressman's constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure."

[I]n court documents filed late Tuesday, Schock's attorneys say the government went too far when it transformed the staffer into an informant and required him to wear a wire to secretly record conversations-- in addition to providing more than 10,000 pages of legislative emails, staff rosters, employee records and confidential documents from Schock's district office the defense considers to be stolen property. The informant rummaged through the desk of Schock's chief of staff and taped conversations with other staffers, the attorneys said.

...Schock's attorneys say the FBI used the informant to get around restrictions on what a federal agent would not have a right to search and seize. The documents suggest Schock's attorneys will move to have the case dismissed by citing, among other things, alleged illegal searches and prosecutorial misconduct.

Using an informant is not uncommon in public corruption cases, but they tread a fine constitutional line, said Jeff Cramer, a former federal prosecutor who is not involved in the Schock case.

"The problems may occur when or if this informant crosses the line starts gathering information at the request of law enforcement that he or she should not be looking for," he said. "When you add a sitting congressman to the calculus it becomes even more fraught with peril."

I asked every member of Congress I know on the House Judiciary Committee if this is fair. No one wanted to talk about it on the record. One member, on condition of anonymity said that "the answer is somewhat complicated. Normally, DOJ and the FBI would not spy on a Member of Congress regarding official business, because of separation of powers concerns, but they probably would say that this was not regarding official business. (There was a big stink over the CIA breaking into House computers a few years ago.)  Aside from that, the courts often rule that anything that a government agent asks a witness to do is the same as the agent himself doing it, which would raise an unreasonable search or seizure issue. In this case, however, under DC law, anyone can take any conversation that he or she wants, so technically, neither the witness nor the agent was doing anything wrong. There still might be an issue of entrapment, depending on exactly what the witness said to the Congressman. Legalese aside, it stinks. Most investigators I’ve known would never say 'go get me this,' regardless of whether the target is a Member of Congress or not."

I wonder if someone is throwing this case so Schock never had to go to jail. Another congressmember e-mailed me that she "didn’t realize [when I first asked her] that the staffer involved was a district staffer, not a DC staffer. It’s a crime to record a conversation in Illinois. If that’s where it happened, then both the staffer and the FBI agent should be investigated and prosecuted."

Republican Determination To Get Rid Of Ethics Rules, Knows No Bounds

The very first thing the House Republicans did in the new session was to try to pass an amendment by Virginia alleged sexual predator Bob Goodlatte neutering the Office of Congressional Ethics. A public uproar forced them to postpone the vote. In the last few days, many Americans have been aghast to read that the scandal-ridden South Dakota state legislature, completely controlled by a depraved Republican Party, has prevented prosecution of its own members who have been raping interns and pages and is declaring a state of emergency to override a voter initiative on ethics! This is what happens in a tyrannical, perverted one-party state like South Dakota:

Stung by scandal and rebelling against a state government known for its resistance to public scrutiny, South Dakota voters narrowly approved a ballot measure in November to impose ethics oversight and campaign finance restrictions aimed at cleaning up the capitol in Pierre.

But the state’s overwhelmingly Republican legislature is racing this week to set aside that new law by using its emergency powers, prompting cries of protest from voters and critics, who are calling the hasty efforts an antidemocratic power grab.

In effect, they say, the state’s voters are being told that their votes don’t matter.

“We’re seeing an unprecedented effort here by Republicans at the federal level, in Congress, and in South Dakota to swim in the swamp instead of draining the swamp,” said Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, which has encouraged its South Dakota members to contact lawmakers there.

Yesterday we outlined several cases where corrupt conservatives have done their best to evade accountability for their repulsive ethics-free misdeeds but have been forced by public opinion to resign from office. And this week Anne Weismann, former chief counsel of CREW and Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org wrote an OpEd for the Washington Post on how members of Congress have surreptitiously succeeded in passing a new rule to shield their own criminal behavior. They wrote that "While all eyes were focused on failed House efforts to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics-- the only independent watchdog with jurisdiction over House members-- Republican congressmen led by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) quietly succeeded on another dubious ethical front: They adopted a rule designating records created, generated or received by a member’s congressional office 'exclusively the personal property' of that member and granting members 'control over such records.' Making congressional records the personal property of members seems tailor-made for the next lawmaker who, like former congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL), hopes to evade criminal responsibility by barring access to material allegedly showing how he misspent public funds." Schock was forced to resign from Congress and was convicted on 24 criminal counts in November and is still spending millions of dollars from wealthy GOP donors, fighting to stay out of prison.

Before the indictment, the Justice Department engaged in a protracted legal battle with Schock’s lawyers over who controlled thousands of pages of congressional office records from his tenure. Both Schock and the House general counsel argued that Schock personally owned the records and could not be compelled to produce them. In arguing for the right to access documents showing how Schock spent public funds, the government called Schock’s ownership claim “repugnant to the fundamental principle that no man is above the law.” In other court papers, Justice lawyers pointed out that Schock’s congressional office “does not exist and has never existed solely to represent and serve the interests and goals of Schock or any other Congressman.” Ultimately Schock backed down in the face of a second subpoena, and his indictment quickly followed.

Now, with the latest rule change, members will be shielded from Justice Department subpoenas for records like those at issue in Schock’s case, including Members’ Representational Allowances offering a window into whether members have used taxpayer funds to advance their own interests. With this change, the House essentially has claimed that members’ personal interests in protecting themselves from compelled disclosure trump the interests of constituents and the public. Such a change tilts the scale in favor of the member in any future investigation of the theft of taxpayer funds from Congress.

This rule change also represents yet another example of Congress exempting itself from the same record and accountability system that governs the executive branch. Congress is not subject to either the Freedom of Information Act or Federal Records Act. Although the Center for Legislative Archives houses records of historic value of the House and Senate, the records remain the legal property of the House and Senate.

Now, by making the records of congressional offices the personal property of members, the House has ensured that none of these records will be available for posterity. How ironic that Republican-controlled congressional committees have relied on statutes such as FOIA and the Federal Records Act to fault the practices of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, yet members have cloaked themselves in an impenetrable secrecy that allows them to escape public accountability.

This is yet another example where President Trump’s “drain the swamp” rhetoric is contradicted by the actions of his own party.

It's tempting to blame this on Republicans and it's true that the nature of conservatism in inexorably tied to corruption. They can't be separated. BUT, the Beltway governance systems are fully based on corrupttion and what's left of America's democracy-- and, yes, the DC Democrats are just as responsible as the Republicans-- is rotten to the core. The system is tailor made for the most ruthlessly corrupt among officials to rise to the top-- the Debbie Wasserman Schultzes, Chuck Schumers, Cory Bookers, Steny Hoyers, Joe Crowleys, as well as that Kevin McCarthys, Mitch McConnells, Paul Ryans, Denny Hasterts, Tom Delays and John Boehners. How fitting for someone likeDonald J. Trump to be presiding over all of this in what very well may be it's final, dying days! His regime's transition and first week are known for two things: lies (lots and lots and lots of lies-- so many lies that even the staid old NY Times now calls it lies-- "This is not a presentation of 'alternative facts,' whatever that may mean, as Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s mistress of misdirection, posited over the weekend; these are lies; good old-fashioned lies, baldfaced and flat-out lies"-- and operational denial of any and all acknowledgement that there are ethics considerations in governance. David Sirota: "A review of agreements between Trump’s top appointees and federal ethics regulators shows that none of the compacts mentions the 2009 executive order that requires incoming officials to sign a pledge to avoid participating in policies that 'directly and substantially relate to [their] former employer or former clients' for the first two years of government service. Obama-era ethics agreements included standard language obligating political appointees to follow the rule." Teapot Dome, here we come!

What Kind Of Corruption Will Sessions Take On-- And What Kind Will He Ignore?

Corruption draws certain types of characters to DC the way flies are drawn to horse barns. And while there's never quite been anyone like El Presidente-elect Señor Trumpanzee before, who actually told the NY Times yesterday that "In theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly. There's never been a case like this... The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest." With about 2 million votes fewer than Clinton and not even voted president by the Electoral College, he's already using Trump Tower as a virtual Office of Emoluments, using his claims to the presidency to benefit his company and his family on a daily basis. Yeah, he's a disgusting animal but it's rare to find a conservative who isn't corrupt, even if their corruption doesn't rise to a Trumpian level.

Take Aaron Schock for example, a smug, right-wing little asshole-- and self-loathing, anti-gay closet case-- from Peoria, who was forced to resign from Congress last year. Monday the details of his 24-count indictment started coming out. People already knew about some of the basics-- embezzling and stealing public funds, using campaign contributions to finance his lavish and racy lifestyle, charging the taxpayers $40,000 to redecorate his office to look like the set of the Downton Abbey TV show... all the regular stuff conservatives do in DC. He even used his clout to buy early Super Bowl tickets and then resold them at a hefty profit closer to the event.

But one for the books was his little side profit center of arranging for tours for his constituents-- for a $785 fee, a fee that, in part, went right into his own personal bank account (a secret Florida bank account under a fictitious name that he set up for his ill-gotten gains). He was actually charging the voters from the suburbs of Peoria, Springfield and Bloomington to see a bit of DC and then have a meet-and-greet with the handsome young congressman who was always eagerly posing half nude for men's magazines.

His high-priced crooked lawyer says that the money seized from the secret bank account was going to possibly be used for future events for his constituents, referring to the thousands of stolen dollars as "small amounts." Schock could face 20 years behind bars but he's white and well-connected so will probably just get a slap on the wrist sentence and back on the DC gay bar circuit in less than a year.

That would be penny-ante corruption compared to the course Trump has already embarked on. But there's a different kind of corruption that haunts American politics as well-- as we see it everywhere and everyday-- a kind of corruption that destroys the fabric of American democracy itself. Yesterday we mentioned that Wisconsin had a 4% drop off in voter participation compared to 2012. That was part of what made Trump president. And yesterday Michael Wines wrote about one of the reasons for that-- GOP gerrymandering. "A panel of three federal judges," he wrote, "said on Monday that the Wisconsin Legislature’s 2011 redrawing of State Assembly districts to favor Republicans was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, the first such ruling in three decades of pitched legal battles over the issue. Federal courts have struck down gerrymanders on racial grounds, but not on grounds that they unfairly give advantage to a political party-- the more common form of gerrymandering. The case could now go directly to the Supreme Court, where its fate may rest with a single justice, Anthony M. Kennedy, who has expressed a willingness to strike down partisan gerrymanders but has yet to accept a rationale for it."

Should the court affirm the ruling, it could upend the next round of state redistricting, in 2021, for congressional and state elections nationwide, most of which is likely to be conducted by Republican-controlled legislatures that have swept into power in recent years.

...Several election-law scholars said the ruling was especially significant because it offered, for the first time, a clear mathematical formula for measuring partisanship in a district, something that had been missing in previous assaults on gerrymandering.

The 2-to-1 ruling by the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin said that the Legislature’s remapping violated both the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because it aimed to deprive Democratic voters of their right to be represented. “Although Wisconsin’s natural political geography plays some role in the apportionment process,” the court wrote, “it simply does not explain adequately the sizable disparate effect” of Republican gains in the State Assembly after the boundaries were redrawn.

...[The] lawsuit said that in the 2012 elections for the Assembly, Wisconsin Republicans won 48.6 percent of the two-party vote but took 61 percent of the Assembly’s 99 seats.

Way too partisan, the judges found. And now there are serious questions if there was enough actual vote-fraud in Wisconsin to have taken the state out of Clinton's column and given it-- inappropriately-- to Trump. But none of this kind of corruption is likely to interest the new Trumpy-the-Clown Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (KKK-AL). He's more worried about citizens of states voting to end marijuana prohibition, which is what happened in California last week. Sunday, we heard from leaders in the cannabis industry about their expectations from the probable Attorney General. Yesterday, Mike McPhate singled out what Sessions could mean for legalization in California which was just approved 6,688,081 (56.4%) to 5,160,375 (43.6%).

Cannabis is illegal under federal law, and if Mr. Sessions were to be confirmed, many supporters of legalization worry that his past remarks about marijuana could portend a crackdown.

“We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized,” Mr. Sessions said at a Senate hearing in April.

Thomas Fuller, our San Francisco bureau chief, wrote on Monday about the fragility of the truce that has existed between the federal government and states that have legalized the drug.

So, what are we to make of Mr. Sessions?

We asked John Hudak at the Brookings Institution to help explain. Mr. Hudak’s research has focused on state and federal marijuana policy. His book, Marijuana: A Short History, was published in October.

• How worried should California’s emerging marijuana industry be about Mr. Sessions?

As attorney general, Sessions would have the ability to rescind two Justice Department directives-- known as the Cole and Ogden memos-- that called for stepping back from marijuana prosecutions. He could also use federal law enforcement power against operators and sue state regulators to block state systems. The only person who can stop the attorney general is the president, and it is unclear whether Trump will direct or delegate drug policy-- the latter option being what should worry California the most.

• What’s your read on Mr. Trump’s posture toward states with legal marijuana?

Trump has made statements that seem supportive of states’ rights around marijuana and made others that are unclear. It is also unclear whether this is a policy he will direct from the White House or just let his attorney general steer this ship. It all means, pot policy in the U.S. is up in the air.

• What might a marijuana crackdown in California look like?

First, the Justice Department would likely sue the state to prevent the enforcing of Prop 64. They could use other law enforcement entities-- outside of the Drug Enforcement Administration-- to begin physical crackdowns on existing operators. The law enforcement efforts would be expensive. The litigation approach might be cheaper and easier-- if less effective.

• What does all this mean for the individual consumer?

It would be nearly impossible for federal officials to arrest every marijuana consumer in California (or elsewhere), but if the Trump administration strikes at the heart of the industry-- shutting down the supply chain-- it would drive producers underground and consumers back to the black market.

And it could take attention away from actual corrupt, the kind of corruption Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has no intention of having the Justice Department involved in.

His Friend Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm Has Been Released From Prison But Aaron Schock May Soon Be On His Way There

Tuesday, Darin LaHood, not only won reelection-- impressively: 72.2-27.8%-- he won every single one of the 19 counties in the downstate Illinois district-- with massive margins in the population centers like McLean, Peoria, Sangamon, Tazwell and Adams. But no one would even notice the inconsequential backbencher except for one factor: he replaced former "Future Superstar" Aaron Schock when Schock was forced to resign in March of 2015 over a series of criminal activities connected to his penchant for the... flamboyant.

Recently young Aaron paid a fine and I was pissed off that he was getting away with all his crap for some cash provided by wealth Republican donors. But early yesterday People, of all sources, reported that Schock's now incredibly wealthy attorney, thanks to this never-ending case, announced that Schock was about to be indicted. I guess they figured it would be useful to get ahead of the story and try to spin it as something about Downton Abbey and Katy Perry instead of theft of government funds, fraud, making false statements and filing false tax returns.

By yesterday afternoon the Chicago Tribune was already reporting that the axe had fallen and that Schock has been indicted on 24 criminal counts by a federal grand jury, that he;ll be appearing court in a few days and that "several of the counts against him have maximum penalties of 20 years in prison."

Schock quit Congress on March 31, 2015. The same day, he was served with a subpoena outside his Peoria home by three federal agents. The subpoena told him to appear before the grand jury and turn over large number of records from the previous five years. He never testified before the panel.

The scandal that led to Schock’s downfall began with what might have been a tempest in a teapot: He had his congressional office redecorated with a “Downton Abbey” motif.

An Illinois designer was paid for the work, but one of Schock’s aides tried to cover up the payment. Soon the press began detailing the lawmaker’s far-flung trips, heavy reliance on private aircraft and habit of overbilling the government for auto mileage.

Schock has been hoping to start paying down some of his legal bills by getting a job as Trump's new White House interior decorator, but that seems ruined now, as the President-Elect feels he has enough criminals facing long prison terms in his inner circle already. Schock may be having severe money problems but a major gay porn house, TitanMen, has offered him a million dollars to star in a series of adult films. His legal bills-- to keep him out of prison-- already exceed that.

Schock's p.r. agent at McGuire Woods Consulting said he will read this script they've prepared for him to the media: "Neither I nor anyone else intentionally did anything wrong. As I have said before, we might have made errors among a few of the thousands and thousands of financial transactions we conducted, but they were honest mistakes-- no one intended to break any law. We worked tirelessly in my office to serve the constituents of this district and I will always be proud of that fact... I am eager to finally defend my name and reputation in a court of law and move on with my life."

When young Aaron was a high-stylin' Republican congressman he was having an affair with British Olympic driver Tom Daley, who has now reportedly dumped him. He still insists he just hasn't found the right gal yet and denies he's gay, a question usually asked when he's leaving gay bars or lurking around gat neighborhoods. Here's Daley from when he and Schock were an item.