House counsel accuses Schock investigators of illegal tactics

The House’s legal counsel is accusing federal prosecutors of using potentially illegal and unconstitutional investigative tactics to go after former Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) for alleged misuse of government and campaign funds.

House general counsel Thomas Hungar wrote in a letter this week to Patrick Hansen, the acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of Illinois, that the FBI’s wiring of a congressional staffer as a secret informant likely amounted to a federal crime.

Court filings revealed last month that a Schock staffer secretly taped conversations with the then-lawmaker and other aides. The informant also took documents from Schock’s district office in Peoria, Ill., and gave them to federal investigators. 

{mosads}Hungar’s letter was first reported by Politico on Thursday. 

Hungar argued that congressional staffers have no legal authority to remove official records or to disclose them to third parties unless they’ve been authorized by a member of Congress.

The House counsel posited that a request by law enforcement for a congressional staffer to provide official documents without the authorization of a lawmaker “amounts to a solicitation of that employee to steal official records that do not belong to him or her.”

“Such conduct likely constitutes a federal crime, both on the part of the employee who steals the records and, quite possibly, on the part of the federal agents who induce the commission of that underlying crime,” Hungar wrote.

Schock was indicted last year on 24 counts related to alleged misuse of government and campaign funds for expenses that included gas mileage and office decor. His trial is set to begin this summer. 

The felonies Schock has been charged with include filing a false tax return, theft of government funds, falsification of Federal Election Commission filings and making false statements.