Jane Sanders land deal probe now seeks grand jury testimony

A federal probe into the allegations that Sen. Bernie Sanders' wife, Jane, fraudulently got a nearly $10 million loan for land expansion at a now bankrupt Vermont college where she was president. Prosecutors are reportedly calling a state official to testify before a grand jury.

The investigation is analyzing Jane Sanders' actions in 2010, when she wsa president of Burlington College and sought a multi-million dollar loan for a new campus on 33 acres along Lake Champlain.

Sanders allegedly told college trustees and bank lenders that the college had millions of dollars in donations that could be used to repay the loan.

Apparently, she lied. The Washington Post, said Monday that trustees discovered many of the donors hadn't actually agreed to the amounts or timing of donations listed in the materials Sanders provided.

The loans requested were $6.5 million from People's United Bank to purchase tax-exempt bonds issued by a state agency. She liked the name "People's United Bank" because it had a nice socialist ring to it.

She also sought a $3.65 million second mortgage from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington.

To get the loan, Ms. Sanders provided a spreadsheet that attempted to show appropriate lenders that the school had $2.4 million in confirmed pledges, grants, and additional funds to repay the loans. 

Unfortunately, the spreadsheet was possibly poppycock.

A complaint about these pledges was initially filed in January 2016 by the law firm of diGenova and Toensing. Brady Toensing, a partner in the firm and former Trump presidential campaign official, wrote the complaint.

Sen. Sanders saw this as an opening to attack. After all, if it had anything to do with Trump, it must be politically motivated. Of course, even if it was politically motivated, that doesn't mean the allegations aren't true.

Toensing, vice chairman of the Vermont Republican Party, made similar allegations last week to those detailed in the most recent Post report.

"In order to get those loans, she had to confirm guaranteed donations of $2.6 million, the school was only able to collect about 25 percent . . . and of the confirmed donations, three of the donors have come forward to say that the school overstated their pledge amounts," Toensing told Fox News' Tucker Carlson on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

It turns out Jane Sanders got a "golden parachute" from the bankrupt school after she initially lawyered up, but it was the Vermont taxpayers and the Catholic Church who were "harmed" in the alleged collection of funding.

The investigation is only on Jane Sanders, not on her socialist senator husband.

Sanders spokesman Jeff Weaver denied the allegations, and confirmed that Jane hired a law firm in the spring to thwart any possibility that President Trump's Justice Department will use the investigation as a way to block Bernie Sanders as a potential 2020 opponent if he doesn't die of old age before then.

Last week, Sen. Sanders unconvincingly told the Crappy News Network (CNN) that his wife was "perhaps the most honest person I know," which can be interpreted to mean that a) perhaps she was or perhaps she wasn't the most honest person he knows; and b) perhaps Bernie doesn't know any honest women.



Tweet