issue actually was mileage reimbursement. schock is accused of receiving funds for miles he never traveled. 90,000 to be exact on that. according to politico he billed the u.s. government for 170,000 miles on his personal car but his car only had 80,000 miles on it so he may have been reembirsimburse reimbursed for 90,000 miles he did not travel. i want to look at this deeper with a political writer and columnist for the state journal register register from springfield, illinois. give us a sense of what the reaction is to this. after the last six weeks of publicity, i think people were surprised that he resigned and they re not surprised this has taken another dramatic step. are you surprised by this?
obviously you know aaron schock and have covered him and you have a sense of him more than the average american. were you surprised? you know what i was surprised about? i knew he was traveling around the world. i knew he didn t mind posting pictures of himself on instagram and i know that he traveled by plane some because last time i saw him at an event recently he helicoptered in. i was really surprised to find out by research that others did how sloppy his bookkeeping was. the fact as you just talked about, politico story and mileage reimbursement for miles he didn t drive, that kind of thing is really kind of shocking always a bad pun with this congressman but it s because he had so much going for him. he was the boy wonder when he was age 26 and running for congress and got into congress
especially the way that it did. i honestly didn t think two cause him to resign but it is still sending a bad message to the constituents. when does his resignation take effect? march 31st. that s two weeks from today. what happens is there s going to be a special election to fill his seat, likely some time this spring or early summer. we re already told that darren lahood the son of long-time congressman from that district, ray lahood will announce as soon as tomorrow is that he ll run. it should stay in gop hands but you never know. i want to bring in politico s jake sherman who s reporting might have been the last straw. politico was reporting you report and ask something questions of schock 12 hours before he resigned. explain what your reporting showed about the mileage reimbursement he got on his personal car. because it is pretty damning
before he resigned. explain what your reporting showed about the mileage reimbursement he got on his personal car. because it is pretty damning stuff. we ve been reporting for about six weeks about many things but specifically the mileage reimbursements. he had a high rate of getting reimbursed from the government and from his campaign accounts for miles he drove. we submitted a freedom of information act request with the state of illinois for all vehicle records and we found when he sold the car that he was driving between 2010 and 2014, it only had 80,000 mile ss on it. he claimed that he had driven about 170,000 miles on it. even if he drove it for exclusively campaign use it would be far less than he submitted. answer i got was not any explanation initially about the reimbursements but the message that he would be resigning effective march 31st. since then, have there been any explanations?
i received almost 2,000 e-mails from veterans and their families documenting injury and/or death as a result of v.a. care. do you get e-mails like that? as far as personal e-mails, i haven t seen it to the extent that you re talking about. we ve had disgruntled veterans in the past about mileage reimbursement, something like that. but not from what you re saying. so you ve never seen an e-mail with regard to veteran dying as a result of lack of care? no. you ve never seen an e-mail with regard to a veteran suffering injury as a lack of care? no. i read each and every one of them. i will share them with you. will you receive them from me if i send them to you? absolutely. there is an anger. there is a feeling of absolute disrespect. so what do you say to the former g.a.s in america today?