Poll of the Day > Bernie Sanders hires lawyers following FBI investigation into loan

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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/22/bernie-sanders-jane-sanders-lawyer-bank-fraud-investigation-burlington-college-215297

Jane Sanders is accused of fraudulently distorting donor information to get a loan from a bank for the now defunct Burlington College and Bernie Sanders himself is accused of using his political influence to pressure the bank into giving the loan.

Bernie had been trying to deflect and downplay the investigation, but apparently things are heating up:

Sanders and his wife have been trying to ignore the federal investigation since reporters for VTDigger, an online publication, confirmed the FBI’s involvement in April. The original request for an investigation into the potential bank fraud did indeed come from Brady Toensing, an attorney who chaired Trump’s Vermont campaign, and whose January 2016 letter to the U.S. attorney for Vermont put federal agents on the trail. (Toensing, in an email to Politico Magazine, notes, “The investigation was started more than a year ago under President Obama, his Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and his United States Attorney, all of whom are Democrats.”)

Now, Senator Sanders and his wife are taking the case more seriously. Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ longtime top political adviser who heads Sanders’ political organization, Our Revolution, confirms to Politico Magazine that Bernie and Jane Sanders have lawyered up. The couple has retained Rich Cassidy, a well-connected Burlington attorney and Sanders devotee, and Larry Robbins, the renowned Washington-based defense attorney who has represented I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and disgraced former Rep. Bill Jefferson, to represent Jane Sanders in the matter.

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On January 10, 2016, in the midst of Sanders’ sudden stardom—just weeks before the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire—the U.S. attorney for Vermont was sent a “Request for an Investigation into Apparent Federal Bank Fraud.”

Backed by six exhibits and a dozen documents, the four-page letter described how Jane Sanders had “orchestrated” the purchase of 33 acres along Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont’s largest city, where her husband had minted his populist political brand as mayor. The deal closed in 2010, when the senator’s wife was president of Burlington College, a tiny, obscure, nontraditional school that always seemed to be struggling for students and funds. The letter alleged that to secure a $10 million loan and execute her grand plan to expand the college, Jane Sanders had falsified and inflated nearly $2 million that she’d claimed donors had pledged to repay the loans.

Sanders had “successfully and intentionally engaged in a fraudulent scheme to actively conceal and misrepresent material facts from a federal financial institution,” the letter alleged. It pressed for a federal investigation into potential bank fraud.

Bernie and Jane Sanders shrugged off the charges. Reporters, mesmerized by the rumpled Vermont senator’s razor-thin margin in Iowa and crushing defeat of Clinton in New Hampshire, ignored the letter. The allegations got no traction on the trail.

Beyond the glare, federal investigators and FBI agents started to pull apart the $10 million financial arrangement. They showed up at Burlington College to sift through hard drives, audit reports and spreadsheets. They began to interview donors, board members and past president Carol Moore. “I was contacted and spoke with an FBI agent numerous times last spring, again last summer,” Moore told Vermont Public Radio in May 2017, “and recently, maybe a month ago.”

A second letter to federal prosecutors in early 2016 alleged that Senator Sanders’ office had pressured the bank to approve the loan application submitted by Jane Sanders. “Improper pressure by a United States Senator is a serious ethical violation,” the letter asserted.

Again, Sanders avoided publicly commenting on the charges.

That strategy seems to have run its course. The federal investigation has been going on for a year and a half. As recently as April, federal investigators were reviewing records and interviewing participants, according to email traffic and former Burlington College board members who have been contacted by FBI agents. The FBI, it seems, is looking into exactly what Jane Sanders did or didn%u2019t do%u2014and whether her husband Bernie, hero of the progressive left, tried to ease along one of the loans.

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Huh.
Hope he didn't do anything. He makes me laugh. Shame shame if he did though.
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The investigation was started more than a year ago under President Obama, his Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and his United States Attorney, all of whom are Democrats.

The DNC established contingencies if Bernie somehow thwarted their predestined plans for Hillary. That's genuinely amazing.
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Veedrock- posted...

The investigation was started more than a year ago under President Obama, his Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and his United States Attorney, all of whom are Democrats.

The DNC established contingencies if Bernie somehow thwarted their predestined plans for Hillary. That's genuinely amazing.

I love that that's your takeaway.
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Further proof that no one is as clean as they want to be or think that they are.

This is a bad look for the democrats because they don't have anyone to runq against Trump, as he sadly won't be Impeahced, in the 2020 election.
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Of course I hadn't heard of it, just like most hadn't heard of all the accusations about the Clinton Foundation, either, and still haven't... The media hides it as long as they can, when it involves the left.
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The Wave Master posted...

This is a bad look for the democrats because they don't have anyone to runq against Trump

I mean, does anyone really want a 79-year-old first termer?

Et tu, Bernie?

I hadn't heard about it until last night.

Honestly on the list of things I don't care about, Bernie's wife being a dick is up there.
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Politicians are corrupt. Water is wet.

This article doesn't explain any way Bernie abused his power. It says he may have applied pressure but it doesn't say how or when or even speculate beyond "he may have." It doesn't seem unreasonable to investigate the spouse of someone who is being investigated for "bank fraud."

So..

Smarkil posted...

Honestly on the list of things I don't care about, Bernie's wife being a dick is up there.

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Wipe the saliva from your mouth Zeus

Yes I heard about this back during the election.
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Duck-I-Says posted...

I mean, does anyone really want a 79-year-old first termer?

To be fair, Reagan was 70 when he was elected, at a time when average life expectancy was about 10-15 years shorter than it is now, so there's technically precedent for it.


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Also kinda noteworthy:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/05/17/burlington-college-campus-purchase-still-coming-back-haunt-jane-sanders

Sanders left with a buyout package totaling a reported $200,000 and was succeeded in the presidency by her chief financial officer, Christine Plunkett.

Bernie Sanders, who railed against golden parachutes for CEOs, had a wife who took a $200k golden parachute after bankrupting the college she ran.

The Wave Master posted...

This is a bad look for the democrats because they don't have anyone to runq against Trump, as he sadly won't be Impeahced, in the 2020 election.

Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Cuomo (assuming he's not in jail), and more are still around. In general, though, a 2020 Sanders run never looked feasible. If they were rolling out the geriatric wing, though, Joe Biden would probably get the nomination.

Jen0125 posted...

This article doesn't explain any way Bernie abused his power. It says he may have applied pressure but it doesn't say how or when or even speculate beyond "he may have." It doesn't seem unreasonable to investigate the spouse of someone who is being investigated for "bank fraud."

I'm sure the particulars will come out if it goes to trial, but generally speaking senators' offices *do* have contact with banks, etc, and it seems like pretty garden variety corruption allegations. Bearing in mind that the article doesn't seem to specify the origins of the second letter to prosecutors, which may have even come from somebody who worked at the bank.
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Zeus posted...

Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Cuomo (assuming he's not in jail), and more are still around. In general, though, a 2020 Sanders run never looked feasible. If they were rolling out the geriatric wing, though, Joe Biden would probably get the nomination.

lol Elizabeth Warren is a sellout / joke.
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Judgmenl posted...

Yes I heard about this back during the election.

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Cacciato posted...

Et tu, Bernie?

lmao

Judgmenl posted...

Zeus posted...

Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Cuomo (assuming he's not in jail), and more are still around. In general, though, a 2020 Sanders run never looked feasible. If they were rolling out the geriatric wing, though, Joe Biden would probably get the nomination.

lol Elizabeth Warren is a sellout / joke.

Why not give Franken a push?

Jane Sanders hires lawyers following FBI investigation into her loan.

Bernie guilty before proven innocent by association. Is this really the best the DNC can do for slander?
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JamieTheWhite posted...

Jane Sanders hires lawyers following FBI investigation into her loan.

Bernie guilty before proven innocent by association.

Zeus is a single older caucasian male. His hobbies include model trains, berating forward thinking females, and poorly disguising anti-semitic views.
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Judgmenl posted...

Zeus posted...

Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Cuomo (assuming he's not in jail), and more are still around. In general, though, a 2020 Sanders run never looked feasible. If they were rolling out the geriatric wing, though, Joe Biden would probably get the nomination.

lol Elizabeth Warren is a sellout / joke.

Doesn't really matter if people will vote for her, does it?

JamieTheWhite posted...

Jane Sanders hires lawyers following FBI investigation into her loan.

Bernie guilty before proven innocent by association. Is this really the best the DNC can do for slander?

...given that Bernie is accused of exerting political pressure on the bank to give the loan, it's not a matter of "guilty by association." Unless you feel that if a wife kills a man and the husband helps to bury the body, the husband is only "guilty by association."
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I'll believe it when I see guilty. And even then, it doesn't come close to the caliber of the typical politician's literal backstabbing of their country.

I can't say I wouldn't be disappointed, but I honestly doubt any of this is true. It would be uncharacteristically dumb on his part.
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Holy crap, can we find a politicion that is a corrupted douchnozzle? Glad we didn't hire him for president now. The only other one of the the candidates i liked was Kasich. Besides him i think the rest of the candidates were unqualified or too sleezy.
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ClarkDuke posted...

..

lol
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