Bernie and Jane Sanders, under FBI investigation

[Huber.]

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and his wife, Jane Sanders have hired prominent defense attorneys amid an FBI investigation into a loan Jane Sanders obtained to expand Burlington College while she was its president, CBS News confirms.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-...bi-investigation-for-bank-fraud-hire-lawyers/

 

[Phills14]

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and his wife, Jane Sanders have hired prominent defense attorneys amid an FBI investigation into a loan Jane Sanders obtained to expand Burlington College while she was its president, CBS News confirms.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-...bi-investigation-for-bank-fraud-hire-lawyers/

I'm not a Sanders fan but this caught my eye in the article.
"Brady Toensing of Burlington, the man responsible for the claims filed to the U.S. attorney for Vermont, was a chairman for the Trump campaign in his state. "

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I'm not a Sanders fan but this caught my eye in the article.
"Brady Toensing of Burlington, the man responsible for the claims filed to the U.S. attorney for Vermont, was a chairman for the Trump campaign in his state. "

And by the same token, the entire Trump Russia dossier was actually bought and paid for by the Democrats via Fusion GPS.

Hmm.....

At least in the case of Bernie's wife, there's a specific crime that is being alleged based on specific facts -- fraudulent representation to obtain a loan. My guess is that Bernie is clear, but I think his wife may be in trouble.

Still not sure what the alleged crime is involving Trump.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/1/donald-trump-democrats-dossier-tactic-a-disgrace/

 

[bob2the2nd]

Still not sure what the alleged crime is involving trump

Man you should probably read any of the dozens of posts others on this website have already spelled out to you, or literally 1000s of articles that address this online. Or turn on a news network that actually reports news

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Man you should probably read any of the dozens of posts others on this website have already spelled out to you, or literally 1000s of articles that address this online. Or turn on a news network that actually reports news

It's a simple enough question -- what is the actual crime involving Trump and Russia? And I'm not talking about claimed obstruction into the investigation of a crime -- I'm talking about the actual underlying crime for which he is being investigated?

Hillary was being investigated for putting classified material on an unclassified server -- there was a specific criminal statute at issue. Ms. Sanders is being investigated for criminal fraud in a loan application. Those are both crimes -- you can point to a statute and say "that's what we're looking at."

What is the underling crime for which Trump is being investigated?

 

[Randolphkeys]

It is incredibly important to research and publicly expose any fraudulent action and shady business deals made under office. Everything I've read sounds like Bernie wasn't involved, but research the hell out of it.

It would be horrible if someone used public office to benefit their own businesses and investments first and foremost. Misuse of public money ruins the system for everyone.

 

[CleveRocks]

I'm not a Sanders fan but this caught my eye in the article.
"Brady Toensing of Burlington, the man responsible for the claims filed to the U.S. attorney for Vermont, was a chairman for the Trump campaign in his state. "

In january 2016...

The college was shut down in 2015, and the land deal was cited as one reason...

Pretty easy to clear up. The loan application is a hard document, and income is a line item. Income is also on a tax filing or income statement somewhere. If these numbers are not pretty similar there is a problem. The question will be culpability. Whether or not Bernie was involved is a harder area to prove unless he was stupid enough to write a letter on his senate letter head.

 

[CleveRocks]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...d-spotlight/vQcws7acOi4uuo8FtPresM/story.html

A little more color.. the land deal is tge cause of tge collapse, but She left in 2011, after the deal.

32 acres af lake champlain water front for 10 million dollars seems like a really good deal, especially in that neighborhood. But when they sold it off to a developer, there was not enough to cover the debt.

Her story is that she left a detailed implementation plan when she resigned, and that the next administration did not implement any of it.

A failed plan is not illegal, but exaggrating income would be fraud. But even that could hang on the accountant. Still this should be something clear. All of the documents can be exposed, and the law is pretty clear.

 

[CleveRocks]

https://www.insidehighered.com/news...purchase-still-coming-back-haunt-jane-sanders

A more in depth article..

1) she claimed 2.6 million in pledged money, but donations were actually more like 120k annual. some of the purported donors denied pledging a specific amount, and ay least one was donation to be left when she died eventually..

2) After she left, her CFO, took over. Both the CFO and the college board signed off. If Jane is guilty, the CFO is guilty and the board members culpable at some level.

3) The detailed plan is not revealed.. but the college was struggling with the debt from day one. They had to pay property tax on the 32 acres until they were using it. Which by my estimate was north of 350k annual. This was about the annual income of the entire institution. So whatever the plan was, there was no money..

4) a building on the property was a former catholic orphanage. I belive part of the plan was to refurb that into student housing. After Sanders left the CFO determined it would cost 2 million additional to refurbish.. there was no cash to do that.

5) the bulk of the original financing was from a state financing arm (6 million)apparently through money raised by bonds. This was somehow purchased later by peoples bank. I think this is where Bernies influence woukd have been. The other financing came from the Catholic Diocese (2 million) ( Which owned the 32 acres to begin with) and a local bank (400,000). The diocese pulled the plug first. Eventually they sold 27 of the 32 acres to a developer for 7 million ,and kept 5 acres an the orphanage..
6) Sanders was paid a severence of 200k when she resigned.. Apparently she was asked to step down because she was bad at fundraising.

My guess is that this is more about competence than dislhonesty. There is no way a CFO should have signed off on that deal. So unless there us a document where the cfo recommends against, i think Sanders gets off with a wrist slap.

However, on the bonds financing side, Bernie was a power in Burlington, and i can totally see him encouraging the deal. He knew all the players, and could pull the strings. Pretty much classic Burlington, would think they could pull this off. Always a grand spending plan, without much connection to how to pay for it..

 

[col63onel]

Just bribe the Vermont AG with 25k, then make them part of the transition team when Bernie becomes POTUS. Obviously.

 

[Wrathe]

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and his wife, Jane Sanders have hired prominent defense attorneys amid an FBI investigation into a loan Jane Sanders obtained to expand Burlington College while she was its president, CBS News confirms.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-...bi-investigation-for-bank-fraud-hire-lawyers/

People in glass houses hurling stones?

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

https://www.insidehighered.com/news...purchase-still-coming-back-haunt-jane-sanders

A more in depth article..

1) she claimed 2.6 million in pledged money, but donations were actually more like 120k annual. some of the purported donors denied pledging a specific amount, and ay least one was donation to be left when she died eventually..

2) After she left, her CFO, took over. Both the CFO and the college board signed off. If Jane is guilty, the CFO is guilty and the board members culpable at some level.

3) The detailed plan is not revealed.. but the college was struggling with the debt from day one. They had to pay property tax on the 32 acres until they were using it. Which by my estimate was north of 350k annual. This was about the annual income of the entire institution. So whatever the plan was, there was no money..

4) a building on the property was a former catholic orphanage. I belive part of the plan was to refurb that into student housing. After Sanders left the CFO determined it would cost 2 million additional to refurbish.. there was no cash to do that.

5) the bulk of the original financing was from a state financing arm (6 million)apparently through money raised by bonds. This was somehow purchased later by peoples bank. I think this is where Bernies influence woukd have been. The other financing came from the Catholic Diocese (2 million) ( Which owned the 32 acres to begin with) and a local bank (400,000). The diocese pulled the plug first. Eventually they sold 27 of the 32 acres to a developer for 7 million ,and kept 5 acres an the orphanage..
6) Sanders was paid a severence of 200k when she resigned.. Apparently she was asked to step down because she was bad at fundraising.

My guess is that this is more about competence than dislhonesty. There is no way a CFO should have signed off on that deal. So unless there us a document where the cfo recommends against, i think Sanders gets off with a wrist slap.

However, on the bonds financing side, Bernie was a power in Burlington, and i can totally see him encouraging the deal. He knew all the players, and could pull the strings. Pretty much classic Burlington, would think they could pull this off. Always a grand spending plan, without much connection to how to pay for it..

It certainly doesn't sound like they were directly trying to enrich themselves -- the loan was for the college, not for them. Of course, her salary was paid by the College, so if it went under, she'd lose her job and income.

I don't think the mere fact others signed off on the deal insulates her - it is entirely possible that the CFO didn't want to lose his/her job either, and was willing to fudge on the loan documents to keep the school open. We kind of saw something similar at Penn State -- multiple executives put the prosperity/reputation of "the school" above moral, ethical behavior.

But, frankly like the Trump stories, it's something we're going to wait to see how the facts eventually play out.

 

[-Akronite-]

What is the underling crime for which Trump is being investigated?

There are various laws which may have been broken in the process of collusion. To what extent these laws were broken and how much the president knew and when are part of the investigation. But at this point, publicly we know that various former and current members of his administration are part of this investigation which the president is now under investigation for obstructing. If this were some political witch hunt (hint: it's fucking not) then the president and his team has handled it horribly. If no wrongdoing occurred, I don't understand the trail of lies we've seen.

This article does an alright job of addressing the question you and (some coincidence) a few Fox talking heads have brought up of the whole "even if he did so what?" variety. They aren't citing specific statutes, but essentially it is possible that the collusion included illegals acts. And the collusion itself would be an impeachable offense.

As for Bernie, I am interested in seeing what comes out of this, as he's someone that I respect a lot as a political voice. It feels like it could be a political move to undermine his apparent liberal moral authority, but I am not going to jump to any conclusions either way. Much like with someone like Ron Paul, I'm certainly not rooting for one of the few seemingly decent politicians to end up being dirty. Still not equivalent to a lot of the shit we have in congress but ugh...

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

There are various laws which may have been broken in the process of collusion.

What "various laws" are those?

The only reason I'm bringing this up is the eye-rolling at the Sanders being investigation, because at least there's a specific offense. The Trump investigation is starting to look like what lawyers usually call a "fishing expedition", where you don't even know what you're looking for, but are just looking through everything to see if there is anything incriminating.

"Sleazy but not illegal" is not a proper target for an investigation by either the FBI or a Special Counsel, even if its something you think "people should know".

 

[Randolphkeys]

There's absolutely a fishing expedition going on with Trump, because he is a loose cannon with alignment of all three branches of government behind him. It only took a Republican controlled Congress to render most of Obama's initiatives as a futile wall which couldn't pass anything. Trump has a clear path, and had already pushed through a lot of initiatives. I think many people raise an eyebrow because Trump was openly a dishonest manipulative sleazeball his entire life... which wasn't at all illegal since he never held an elected office. His electability as a professional lying sleazeball continues to baffle.

However, I'm all for investigations of financial impropriety of all our political representatives. Research them all and if possible, get rid of most of them.