WWTBAM Bored

The free college guy? Mail fraud, causes a college to go bankrupt?

You can't make this stuff up.

BackInTex wrote:The free college guy? Mail fraud, causes a college to go bankrupt?

You can't make this stuff up.

Ah, but you did make it up. FAKE NEWS!

The college did not go bankrupt; it did close, however.

The FBI is investigating, no one has been charged.

I think you may need a lawyer to defend against libel.

Bob Juch wrote: The college did not go bankrupt; it did close, however.

Vermont college once led by Bernie Sanders' wife to close due to debt

Tō mā tō / Tō mă tō

After years of struggling to stave off financial ruin, Burlington College announced Monday that it will close its doors for good May 27.

Sanders departed not long after the deal was inked, giving no explanation for her resignation but reportedly accepting a $200,000 severance package, according to VPR. And the small school was left to suffocate under the “crushing weight of debt,”

They did not FILE for bankruptcy, but they were bankrupt. Look up the definition. It applies.

Bob Juch wrote:The FBI is investigating, no one has been charged.

silverscreenselect wrote:The FBI has spent decades investigating, arresting, and convicting mob bosses, terrorists, foreign agents, and sophisticated white collar criminals. They know what's at stake if they start blabbing to the press, on the record or not.

Trump agrees to $25 million settlement in Trump University fraud cases

Mrs. Sanders probably dislikes being compared to Mr. Trump the most.

jarnon wrote: Mrs. Sanders probably dislikes being compared to Mr. Trump the most.

When your two of a kind, it's what you get.

Jane Sanders tried to evict disabled group home

The purchase included a facility that served as a group home for disabled people and, under the terms of the deal, Jane was supposed to negotiate the transfer of the disabled residents before the school took over the property. Instead Jane tried to kick the disabled people out of their group home,...

In reality, the acquisition of that property bankrupted the College, and Sanders is now being investigated for bank fraud by the FBI for misrepresentations she made on loan documents to purchase the land for the campus.

Senator Sanders, who is up for reelection this year, hit the media circuit this week to defend his wife, assuring that she’s the most honest person he knows

Makes one wonder who else he knows?

Reading through this to see what's actually here and what's hyperbole (a lot in the Judicial Watch article), the chairman of the Vermont State Republican party filed a complaint with the Justice Department in early 2016 while Bernie Sanders was running for President. The Justice Department launched an investigation based on that complaint. It's not the policy of the FBI to state when an investigation is closed because it's always possible more evidence may turn up at a later date, but there's no indication anywhere whether or not they are still actively pursuing the investigation.

It's fairly clear based on this that Jane Sanders exercised poor business judgment that cost the school and probably contributed to its closing. It's not clear how that amounts to fraud on her part or Bernie's part. It's been alleged that the school's assets (donation pledges) were overstated on loan applications. Again, it's not clear who was responsible for that, and it's certainly not clear whether or not there was civil or criminal fraud on anyone's part. Obviously, as school president, Jane Sanders had ultimate responsibility for documents filed with a bank, but that doesn't mean there was any fraud involved.

As far as the "evictions" are concerned, what we've got is a very slanted Judicial Watch article that uses terms like "heartlessness" to describe Jane Sanders. Their evidence for this is their interpretation of a letter Jane sent the attorney for the disabled people. I will say that Judicial Watch appears to be fairly evenhanded in who they go after (the home page of their website also has articles about Chris Christie), but the tone of this article is far from journalistic.

If Bernie Sanders had been responsible for these actions while he was president of the college, then it would be fair to use this matter to question his business judgment. But it was his wife. And questionable business judgment is a far cry from fraud.

Apparently, the guy who accused Jane Sanders didn't hear anything first-hand either.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/polit ... cd004.html

From the article:

"The lawyer, Brady Toensing, sent letters to federal officials alleging that Sanders' office pressured a bank to approve a loan to a now-closed college run by the senator's wife.

The source of that information was Republican Rep. Don Turner, the minority leader of the Vermont House. Turner says he was relaying what his friends told him, but that his friends didn't have direct knowledge of the negotiations.

Toensing, an attorney who served as Donald Trump's Vermont representative during last year's campaign, said Monday he was standing by the allegation."

I am NOT saying there might not be anything there because there is "some" there there (how big that "there" is might be another matter).

I am just saying that the messenger in this case is probably someone who shoudda kept his mouth shut.