2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Did Bernie's wife commit a felony when she secured a loan for Burlington College? [View all]MADem
(135,425 posts)The "golden parachute" isn't the big deal--no one cares about that. It was probably part and parcel of her contract, that if she left early, she got bought out, and maybe got some paid leave too. THAT's not the issue. Every published report says pretty much the same thing--they shoved her out of there, if she didn't leave, she would have been fired. They gave her the parachute and an emeritus title and said "There's the door."
The issue is the banking, the fudging of documents, the misstatement of the pledges. It's a problem because the people PLEDGING the money to the school are saying she misstated their pledged amounts. They all can't be lying, can they? And how do you get past her using as "collateral" money in a will from a guy who was not dead? THAT's the icing on the cake, there. Well, and lying to the bank--of course, if there's no intent (just...stupidity, or something?) then she might be able to wriggle away, assuming she can play dumb or blame someone else
I do think this speaks to her integrity AND/OR her intelligence (and not in a good way). You don't fudge figures that close to the bone, especially when there are individual line items that can be traced to individual people who are ready and willing to say "That's not the amount I pledged." And they have said it. In the paper. On the record. Plus, the money coming in wasn't enough to service the loan, not even with the most wildly optimistic enrollment and endowment figures. One has to wonder what in hell she was thinking. It's like buying a new Cadillac on a used Ford Pinto budget.
Nothing to be 'sorry' about, but this is a problem for someone who plays the Holier Than Thou card. And that is part of the Sanders bag of tricks, as you noted, that they're "better" than the others. Well, maybe they aren't--maybe they're just not as good at working the system and raking in the big bucks, but it's not for lack of trying...?
And you're insisting that "Americans don't care about.....????" Tell that to John Kerry. He was SWIFT BOATED. It became a phrase, swift-boating. And he really didn't do anything wrong. There was no dodgy bank statements, or pledge lists, or enrollment figures....but he still got swift boated. So, whatever.