Modi’s Republican supporter quits after fraud charges

A young Republican lawmaker who defied the US government’s ban on Narendra Modi and reached out to the then Gujarat chief minister before going on to become the Prime Minister’s best buddy in Washington has had to quit Congress following tax fraud allegations.

Schock billed the federal government and his campaign for logging roughly 170,000 miles on his personal car from January 2010 through July 2014. But when he sold that Chevrolet Tahoe in July 2014, it had roughly 80,000 miles on the odometer, according to public records obtained by a daily from US under Illinois open records laws. The documents, in other words, indicate he was reimbursed for 90,000 miles more than his car was driven.

Schock has been a vocal opponent of LGBT equality since he entered Congress in 2009. He received a 0 percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign in his first term, during which he voted against including sexual orientation in federal hate-crimes legislation and opposed efforts to repeal of the military’s ban on out LGB service members known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He was also a vocal critic of the Obama administration’s decision to stop defending the so-called Defense of Marriage Act in February 2011