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June 23rd Pickings covered the troubles of Jane Sanders growing out of her seven year stewardship of the now bankrupt Burlington College. Under her direction, the college improvidently, and perhaps fraudulently, borrowed ten million dollars to purchase land for a new campus. Our first look was a single article from Politico. Now, WaPo investigative reporters have much more. We will have more items, but it is worth noting the first two pieces on her travails have appeared in friendly publications.
A federal investigation of a land deal led by Jane Sanders, the wife and political adviser of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), has accelerated in recent months — with prosecutors hauling off more than a dozen boxes of records from the Vermont college she once ran and calling a state official to testify before a grand jury, according to interviews and documents.
Half a dozen people said in interviews in recent days that they had been contacted by the FBI or federal prosecutors, and former college trustees told The Washington Post that attorneys representing Jane Sanders had interviewed them to learn what potential witnesses might tell the government.
The investigation centers on the 2010 land purchase that relocated BurlingtonCollege to a new campus on more than 32 acres along Lake Champlain. While lining up a $6.7 million loan and additional financing, Jane Sanders told college trustees and lenders that the college had commitments for millions of dollars in donations that could be used to repay the loan, according to former trustees and state officials.
Trustees said they later discovered that many of the donors had not agreed to the amounts or the timing of the donations listed on documents Jane Sanders provided to a state bonding agency and a bank. That led to her resignation in 2011 amid complaints from some trustees that she had provided inaccurate information, former college officials said.
The land deal, the officials said, became a financial albatross for the 160-student school, contributing to its closure last year. …
A report in Fox News says the probe into Sanders’s wife was started by opposition research in the Clinton campaign. Then again, perhaps those rascally Russians did it.
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ claims that an ongoing FBI probe of his wife is based on partisan politics don’t square with the fact that it began under President Obama and appears to closely track Democratic opposition research revealed in the hacked emails of the Hillary Clinton campaign.
The FBI and U.S. Attorney in Vermont are investigating Jane O’Meara Sanders for her role in a failed 2010, $10 million college land deal that she orchestrated during her seven-year stint as president of BurlingtonCollege in Vermont.
According to a series of 2015 emails to and from Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, leaked to and published on Wikileaks, the Clinton team wrote an extensive political opposition memo entitled “Sanders Top Hits-Thematics.” The memo details Mrs. Sanders’ role in the college’s financial failure, and parallels the ongoing FBI investigation, now before a grand jury, into the scandal. Other email correspondence shows the Clinton team believed scandals surrounding the college and Jane Sanders provided an opportunity to knock the Vermont senator’s reputation and chances to win the Democratic primary election.
“I think our first question is how are we going to defeat Sanders. … he’s not who he says he is — gun votes, DSCC money, Jane. …
… Sen. Sanders has alleged that (the GOP’s) Toensing was motivated to file the complaint because of his ties to Trump. But Toensing told Fox News that is simply wrong. He didn’t take on the role of Vermont state chairman for the Trump campaign until the summer of 2016, well after the federal grand jury investigation of Mrs. Sanders began.
“This investigation was started under President Obama’s Justice Department,” Toensing said. “The senator’s claims are a common, but lame diversion for politicians faced with a grand jury investigation. He should focus on answering the allegations, which are solidly based on analysis of facts from documents obtained through public records requests and evidence gathered by investigative reporters.” …
Turns out failed BurlingtonCollege paid $500,000 to the for-profit woodworking school of Bernie’s daughter. Investment Watchdog has the story.
… Last year, Politico described BurlingtonCollege as catering to “nontraditional students, such as veterans and adults. It grew from its original 14 students to about 200 in recent years, finding appeal with its small student-to-faculty ratio and degrees in unusual fields including woodworking.” Yet, when Jane Sanders first arrived at BurlingtonCollege in 2004 no degree program in woodworking existed. It isn’t until 2009 that public tax records show BurlingtonCollege paying VermontWoodworkingSchool $56,474 for materials, charges and lease of bench space based on student enrollment reflecting what appears to be the beginning of the College’s woodworking program. The college was forced to report this expenditure as it related to a relationship between an interested party (Jane Sander’s daughter, Carina Driscoll) and BurlingtonCollege. Over the next four years, funds to VT Woodworking School increased considerably from this original amount to $133,134 in 2010; $138,571 in 2011; and, $182,741 in 2012 (the last year program expenses are reported in the tax filings).
Another leftist with feet of clay, Elizabeth Warren, is up for election next year. Milo Yiannopoulos Blog tells us about the real Indian who will challenge the fake one.
… “I think only a real Indian can defeat a fake Indian. I sent her a DNA test kit for her birthday, and I was very sad that she returned it. I tweeted it out, and it went viral all over the internet,” Ayyadurai said, referencing Warren’s dubious claim that she has Native American ancestry.
“The issue of a real Indian and a fake Indian — there is a truth there because there is a woman who actually checked off the box that she is Native American. This foretells a person who is basically a self-serving elitist, is willing to cut in line as she needs, is willing to promote policies, for example, illegal immigration, so others can cut in line. I came in as a legal immigrant. My dad came first. We had to wait about a year. So it’s essentially disrespect for the law and disrespect for the country.
Not many cartoons for Jane Sanders yet, BUT there’s lots for Liz Warren.