Bernie Sanders has dismissed accusations that his wife Jane had committed fraud in obtaining bank loans for the now defunct Burlington College and Sanders’ Senate office had stepped in to help, calling the accusations “nonsense,” and blaming it on Donald Trump’s campaign manager in Vermont.
Cue the FBI, according to VTDigger, an online publication, according to Politico, which has an in-depth article about Jane Sanders’ alleged malfeasance. Although Brady Toensing, an attorney who chaired Trump’s Vermont campaign, had indeed asked for an investigation in January 2016 with a letter to the U.S. attorney for Vermont, he told Politico Magazine, “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 Sanders is worried, with the FBI and President Donald Trump’s Justice Department on his trail. As Politico Magazine reports, Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ longtime top political adviser, confirmed Sanders and his wife have retained high-powered lawyers to represent Jane Sanders, including Larry Robbins, who represented I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and former Rep. Bill Jefferson.
On January 10, 2016, the U.S. attorney for Vermont received a “Request for an Investigation into Apparent Federal Bank Fraud.” The four-page letter said that when she was president of Burlington College, Jane Sanders had “orchestrated” the purchase of 33 acres along Lake Champlain in Burlington to expand the school, where her husband had served as mayor. The letter alleged that Jane Sanders had lied and inflated nearly $2 million she said donors had pledged to repay in order for her to secure a $10 million loan. The letter stated that she “successfully and intentionally engaged in a fraudulent scheme to actively conceal and misrepresent material facts from a federal financial institution,” asking for a federal investigation into potential bank fraud.
A second letter to federal prosecutors alleged that Bernie Sanders’ office had pressured the bank to approve the loan application submitted by his wife.
Now the FBI is investigating whether Bernie Sanders tried to help his wife with one of the loans.
Burlington College past president Carol Moore told Vermont Public Radio, “I was contacted and spoke with an FBI agent numerous times last spring, again last summer, recently, maybe a month ago.”
Weaver told Politico Magazine that any claim that Sanders intervened in a loan request was “ridiculous” and “false.”