Prosecutors deny probing Schock's sexuality
By JOSH GERSTEIN 09/02/2017 10:33 AM EDT
Prosecutors are denying claims that they improperly investigated former Rep. Aaron Schock's sexuality as they probed allegations that he used his office and campaign funds for personal purposes.
In a late-night court filing Friday, prosecutors rejected Schock's lawyers' arguments that such inquiries into the former lawmaker's personal life were part of a pattern of prosecutorial misconduct so outrageous that the criminal case against the Illinois Republican should be thrown out.
The prosecution team denied investigating Schock's sexuality, but said it did need to establish the nature of his relationship with a Panamanian diplomat because his travels with her appeared related to campaign expenses the government believed may have been unrelated to his campaign.
"We fully agree with Defendant Schock that his sexuality is completely irrelevant in this criminal matter," prosecutors Timothy Bass and Eugene Miller wrote in the filing in federal court in Urbana. "It was not of interest to the government, and the government did not inquire about it."
Prosecutors said it is unsurprising that there are references to Schock's sexuality in witness statements because the issue was the subject of gossip and rumor for years among his friends and staffers, even occasionally being mentioned in the media. "Out of the approximately 116 witness interview reports during the investigation and since the indictment, only 4 contain any references to Defendant Schock’s sexuality, and those references were initiated by the witness, not by the government," Bass and Miller wrote. "Defendant Schock’s attempts to attribute misconduct on the part of the government based on an issue that he himself admits pre-dated the grand jury investigation is simply meritless."
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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/02/schock-sexuality-prosecutors-deny-probing-242278
