Sanders’s wife hires lawyer amid bank fraud investigation

Jane Sanders, the wife of former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), has hired two high-powered lawyers with Washington, D.C., connections to defend them as the FBI investigates whether Jane Sanders falsified loan documents while she served as the president of Burlington College. 

Sanders has hired Rich Cassidy, a well-connected attorney from Burlington, Vt., as well as Larry Robbins, the Washington-based attorney who defended I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, to defend herself and her husband in the matter, former campaign manager Jeff Weaver told Politico.

“It would be negligent for anyone involved in the matter to not retain counsel,” Weaver told Politico.

In May, it was reported that Sanders claimed Burlington College could count on $2.6 million in donations to pay for purchased land, according to a 2010 loan application. But she ultimately raised only a fourth of that, making $676,000 in donations over the next four years, forcing the college into bankruptcy in May 2016.

{mosads}Sanders was accused of falsifying the information on the loan documents in order to expand the college grounds by Brady Toensing, President Trump’s campaign manager in the state of Vermont, according to Politico’s report. Toensing sent multiple letters to the FBI and federal officials in 2016 urging an investigation into Sanders’s management of the college’s finances.

“As a result of my [initial] complaint,” Toensing wrote to federal officials, “I was recently approached and informed that Senator Bernard Sanders’s office improperly pressured People’s United Bank to approve the loan application submitted by the Senator’s wife, Ms. Sanders.”

According to the report, the amount that donors agreed to pledge compared to what Sanders documented is different.

Weaver dismissed claims that Bernie Sanders or his office intervened in the loan request, calling it “ridiculous” and “false” in a statement to Politico.

The FBI has not filed formal charges, and Weaver told The Daily Caller in May that the agency had not yet contacted Sanders.