$1,000 dinners, 5-star hotels & his own gold mine: How Aaron Schock schemed his way back into Tr*mp’s Washington
Aaron Schock is back in the news...
Mark
In Tr*mp’s Washington, fraudsters always receive a second chance. As the most corrupt president in modern times, the convicted felon never hesitates to dole out favors.
For an all-out schemer like Aaron Schock, Tr*mp’s re-election represented a gold mine–literally. With a disgraced past, the Republican ex-congressman would’ve previously been unsalvageable. Once a rising political star, Shock resigned in shame after being accused of defrauding the federal government and billing personal expenses to taxpayers. Ultimately, prosecutors pegged the total of fraudulent charges at $100,000, a crime that could’ve landed him in prison for 80 years.
As the case dragged on, Schock moved from his home in conservative Central Illinois to bourgeois Beverly Hills. The former real estate developer went back to his roots and helped open up properties across L.A. and New York City. His most high-profile projects include a boutique hotel in NYC’s trendy Tribeca neighborhood and a renovated Hyatt Place across from LAX. A travel writer who stayed at the Hyatt was impressed, but said he had “issues supporting the owner and developer” of the property.
When it comes to Schock’s infamy, his alleged corruption is only half the story. The right-winger publicly came out as gay in March 2020, after continually voting against LGBTQ+ rights in Congress. He pinned his anti-gay voting record on the Republican Party and his religious upbringing. After coming out, he became estranged from his family.
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Despite living a glamorous gay lifestyle–Schock was pictured partying with Instagays and flouting social restrictions during the early 2020s–the first millennial to enter Congress was also shunned from D.C. power circles.
That changed when Tr*mp began his post-J6 resurgence, attracting an even sleazier cast of characters than before.
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Schock‘s MAGA makeover
Schock fits right in with MAGA’s self-dealing and delusional ethos. Politico recently published an exposé on his gold-plated second act, which involves racking up thousand dollar-plus tabs at fancy restaurants, international jet-setting on his benefactors’ money and promises of an eight-figure payday.
According to the story, a Florida-based GOP donor named Henry Sargeant III paid Schock $100,000 in early 2025 to steer the administration towards friendlier relations with Venezuela, where he’s an investor. To help manage the project, Schock tapped consultant Benjamin Papermaster, who initially pushed him to re-enter politics.
After a meeting with Delcy Rodriguez, the Tr*mp-backed president of Venezuela, Schock boasted that she promised him a literal gold mine if he could lift U.S. sanctions on the South American country.
To aid Schock in his quest, Sargeant apparently thought that Richard Grenell would be a natural ally. The gay Tr*mper opposes nation building and served in a number of posts during Tr*mp’s first term. As fate would have it, Schock already knew Grenell: they campaigned with each other on behalf of the Log Cabin Republicans.
In the lead-up to the ’24 election, Schock was one of the Log Cabin Republicans’ top surrogates. The gay GOP group stood firmly behind Tr*mp.
Days before Tr*mp’s inauguration, Schock traveled via private jet from Miami Beach to Aspen, Colorado for gay ski week. There, he met with Papermaster at the St. Regis Resort (room rates range from $1,000 to $4,000 per night) and devised his plan. A few weeks later, Schock was off to Venezuela’s capital.
Lavish lifestyle
Gifted with a sweetheart plea deal–federal prosecutors agreed to drop 24 felony charges against Schock in 2019–the scandalous figure never toned down his lifestyle. In the lead-up to his March 2020 coming out post, he was spotted partying with gay Hollywood types and making out with a guy at Coachella.
While that’s all fine, many LGBTQ+ people had trouble squaring Schock’s bacchanalian lifestyle with his conservative voting record. He voted against repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but yet, there he was: flouting restrictions and whooping it up in Mexico and Brazil.
Despite the stakes of Schock’s Venezuela mission, the good times didn’t end. Politico reviewed his credit card charges and found that he dined at a fancy steakhouse and stayed at a 5-star resort. From March to August 2025, Schock accounted for $185,000 in business expenses, including flights, meals, luxury hotel stays and multiple OF subscriptions (because of course). Expense records indicate that Sargeant was paying, a claim that he denies.
Unsurprisingly, it appears that Schock disregarded the law. He never filed the necessary paperwork for his foreign lobbying.
“I don’t have friends”
With $1,000 dinner tabs at high-end D.C. eateries, Schock appeared to be back. But his slimy reputation still preceded him. In a WhatsApp message last spring, Papermaster asked Schock if his friends would “pay for his reputation repair.”
The ex-pol replied that he doesn’t have friends. “Lol,” he added. “Only users.”
His erratic behavior over the next several months would show why. Papermaster said Schock began partying at night and sleeping late into the morning, routinely missing meetings and calls. Papermaster said he quit working for Schock last fall, after he stopped getting paid.
Yet, Schock’s golden dreams may still be alive. Though Madura was captured, his regime remains in power. On behalf of oil companies, the Tr*mp admin has restored relations and unfrozen assets. Tr*mp now loves Venezuela so much, he’s mused about running for president of the country.
If that happens, Schock would be a natural envoy.
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