Grand Jury Seeks Witness Testimony in Jane Sanders Probe

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WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 1, 2016: Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and wife Jane Sanders arrive for a news conference at the National Press Club, May 1, 2016, in Washington, DC. Sanders' April fundraising numbers, which were released on Sunday, show he raised $25.8 million, down 40 percent from the previous month. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

A grand jury has begun listening to sworn witness testimony in the case involving Bernie Sanders’s wife and top political adviser, Jane Sanders.

The Justice Department in 2015 launched a federal probe into allegations that Sanders committed bank fraud while she was president of the now-defunct Burlington College, a role she served in between 2004 and 2011.

She is alleged to have led the school into bankruptcy by falsifying a loan application.

Vermont publication VTDigger reported that the U.S. Attorney’s office in that state had interviewed at least one witness, former Burlington College board member Robin Lloyd.

Lloyd’s testimony, which involved laying out a timeline and “general questions about donors, and money coming in,” will aid the grand jury in determining if indictments should be handed up to a judge.

Meanwhile, claims that Bernie used his official office to grease the wheels on the loan have also been investigated.

Vermont House Minority Leader Don Turner told VTDigger in July that “the bank was reluctant to do the loan, and (the former employee) had heard that the Senator’s office had encouraged the bank to do the loan.”

The school defaulted on the nearly $10 million loan, going bankrupt in May of 2016.

This past summer, The New York Times described this federal investigation as “threatening to take some of the luster off of the senator’s populist appeal,” a concern for Bernie as he heads for reelection in 2018 and possibly gears up for another run at the presidency in 2020.

Sanders’s wife has played a significant role in her husband’s political career. She ran Bernie’s first congressional campaign, served as his chief of staff in Congress, was a “central figure” in his presidential campaign, was “very involved” in creating Bernie’s super PAC, and helped launch Bernie’s think tank last year.

So you’d think there’d be some level of interest in this story from the media. You’d be wrong.

Bernie appeared with CNN’s Anderson Cooper last evening, after word of the grand jury witness testimony had circulated, and was hit with roughly zero questions on the investigation. Zero.

Cooper asked Sanders about President Trump’s ‘stability,’ Oprah Winfrey’s potential run in 2020, the border wall, etc., but not one word about his wife being ensnared in an ever-widening federal probe.

Imagine for a minute this probe involved a Trump – Melania, Ivanka, Donald Jr., or Eric. Would there be wall-to-wall media coverage?

The GOP certainly found reports of sworn witness testimony to a grand jury as newsworthy, circulating an email that featured Sanders’s wife behind bars.

The Sanders couple has long implied that the investigation into Jane’s land grab has been politically motivated, despite it being launched during Obama’s second term.

“I think it’s fairly pathetic that when people are involved in public life, it’s not only that they get attacked, but it’s their wives and their families that get attacked,” the Vermont senator said in June.

Will Jane Sanders see jail time in this case? Tell us what you think below!

By Rusty Weiss

Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox... More about Rusty Weiss

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