Ex-state senator’s mileage-reimbursement records sought by federal subpoena

A former state senator was the subject of a grand jury subpoena in January that sought his emails and mileage reimbursement records as part of an apparent federal investigation, according to documents obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.

The subpoena issued to the state Senate out of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois sought emails, tax documents, mileage-reimbursement records and any payments made to William Sam McCann during his time in office from 2011 to 2018, records show.

The reimbursements in question would have come from taxpayer dollars.

Separately, McCann, who has not been charged with any crimes or accused of wrongdoing, also billed his campaign fund more than $36,000 for 15 mileage expenditures in 2017 and 2018 alone, campaign finance records show. At the federal mileage-reimbursement rates for those years, McCann would have driven almost 68,000 miles on campaign business.

Since July 2014, McCann has expensed almost $114,000 in mileage costs from his campaign fund, records show.

In that time, McCann has run a successful reelection bid for state Senate and an unsuccessful bid for governor last year as a third-party candidate with the Conservative Party. In the governor’s race, McCann won only 4 percent of the vote behind then-Gov. Bruce Rauner and the winner, Gov. J.B. Pritzker. McCann is a Republican from Plainview, Ill.

The subpoena, sent on Jan. 3, came at the behest of U.S. Assistant State’s Attorney Timothy Bass, who was the one-time lead prosecutor in former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock corruption case.

McCann did not immediately respond to a request for comment.