A staffer who worked for former Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., was an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, court documents from Schock’s lawyers on Tuesday show.
Schock resigned from Congress in 2015 amid a scandal surrounding his misuse of campaign funds. He was then indicted on fraud charges last November used taxpayer money to fund expensive trips and events.
The court documents say that the day after Schock resigned, the FBI approached a “fairly junior staffer” who then secretly recorded conversations and sent the FBI receipts and more than 10,000 emails sent between staffers.
“There is no indication that the government’s use of the [informant] produced the ‘smoking gun’ it no doubt sought by using him,” Schock’s legal team said in a motion aimed at obtaining more information about the informant’s role in the case. They said the government “cannot run away from” a “trail of improper – if not outright illegal – acts by the [informant] that remain not fully known to the defense in this case.”
Schock’s legal team said the informant “stole” materials from Schock and “deliberately” tried to elicit attorney-client privileged information from other represented individuals, including Schock.
“[T]he government met with their new [informant] almost daily to provide instructions, receive documents or other items the (informant) seized, discuss ‘scenarios,’ equip him with the recording device, and debrief him after completion of a monitoring and recording session,” the documents said.
