Emails obtained by WikiLeaks shows that Hillary Clinton’s campaign planned to attack Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) wife, Jane Sanders, over allegations that are related to the FBI investigation of her.
As reported by Fox News, a memo was circulated among the Clinton campaign in 2015 that was dubbed as “Sanders Top Hits-Thematics” that detailed the controversy surrounding Jane Sanders during her tenure as president of Burlington College:
The so called “hits” piece also included a passage headed “O’Meara Sanders brokered a risky and potentially fraudulent purchase that nearly bankrupted the college.”
“After several years as the president of Burlington College, Jane O’Meara Sanders resigned amid speculation that she conflicted with the board and [didn’t] bring in enough money for the school. Critics later tied her to the school’s financial trouble after she brokered a deal to borrow $10 million to buy land for the college,” Clinton’s team summed up in a political opposition memo. “Members of the lending agency expressed concern over the college’s ability to repay the loan, and one suggested that if O’Meara Sanders was not involved, the loan would not have been approved.”
The opposition research also highlighted numerous media reports, summarizing related scandals, including the fact that Mrs. Sanders took a $200,000 golden parachute when she left the college and, before that, arranged a deal where Burlington College paid her daughter’s company, The Vermont Woodworking School, $55,000, as part of a craftsman decree.
Another email exchange among the Clinton campaign took place in 2015, which involved one Clinton campaign member writing that there was a litany of items to use as a political bludgeon against Sanders, including “gun votes, DSCC money, Jane.”
“How we undermine Sanders candidacy is our threshold question,” the team member wrote.
The FBI is currently investigating whether Sanders falsified documents in order to obtain a loan from a bank needed to purchase a piece of land for the college. She was eventually ousted from her position and Burlington College was forced to close its doors from all the debt it had accumulated.
The investigation first stemmed from a complaint in January 2016, so the Clinton campaign’s line of attack predated the investigation, but it showed that the campaign was taking the allegations against Jane Sanders seriously even before the investigation started, undermining the excuse put forth by the Sanders camp that the lawsuit is nothing more than a political stunt from the GOP.