The FBI investigation into the alleged financial misdeeds of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) wife while serving as president of Burlington College is picking up speed, and it may in the end drag him into court along with her. The growing scandal has even drawn out a Democratic challenger for Sanders to face in his reelection bid.
On Monday, The Washington Post reported the FBI investigation into Jane Sanders has “accelerated … with prosecutors hauling off more than a dozen boxes of records … and calling a state official to testify before a grand jury.”
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The Post also reported that at least six people interviewed by the newspaper said that they were contacted by either the FBI or federal prosecutors. Moreover, “former college trustees told The Washington Post that lawyers representing Jane Sanders had interviewed them to learn what potential witnesses might tell the government,” the Post reported.
The investigation is focused on a 2010 land deal Jane Sanders orchestrated, the funds for which Sanders may have obtained fraudulently. In order to purchase the prime 32-acre property on the shore of Lake Champlain, Sanders allegedly secured a $6.7 million loan by telling lenders the college had commitments for donations large enough to repay the loan. The truth was that the college barely had any commitments whatsoever.
The investigation is enough of a potential headache for Sanders as it is, but there are also whispers that Sanders himself may have used his position to advocate for his wife’s land purchase plan.
“Sanders is hypocrisy personified,” Jon Svitavsky, a Burlington-area homeless advocate who intends to challenge Sanders for his Senate seat, told LifeZette. “As far as Jane’s involvement [in the land purchase] and the FBI investigation, Bernie has written off the whole thing just because it was brought [to the FBI’s attention] by a Trump associate.”
“Did Jane really have the pledges secure?” he said. “It’s pretty damning that information disappeared, records disappeared, the computer disappeared,” he continued. “I trust that the FBI is looking at it seriously, as well they should.”
But Svitavksy stressed there were more questions surrounding Sanders’ ethics than just his potential involvement in his wife’s fraudulent activities. “What happened to the $10 million [in missing funds from Sanders’ campaign]?” he said. “Then there was the whole trip to Rome to see the Pope — was that legal?”
Regardless of any potential legal wrongdoings, he said he was was motivated to run against Sanders — whom he blames for the election of Donald Trump — largely because of what he sees as Sanders’ general hypocrisy. In fact, had Sanders truly cared about the issues, according to Svitavsky, he wouldn’t have put Donald Trump in position to defeat a weakened Clinton.
“I think that very clearly if Sanders had not gotten involved [Clinton would be president],” Svitavksy said. Sanders should have “dropped out and looked at Donald Trump and looked at Hillary Clinton and then thought about the issues that he purportedly cares so much for.”
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“I think his ego was more important to him than fighting for what he supposedly believes,” he continued. “There’s a big difference between Sanders and the Sanders the electorate sees — Bernie as the ideal … truth standing up to power.” That all sounds great — but in terms of what he’s really done — the gap of how he’s viewed by the public … and those who know him and those who have tried to work with him [is huge].”
“Bernie is for Bernie,” Svitavsky said. “That’s the real reason why he didn’t receive a single endorsement.”
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