
Sen. Bernie Sanders has pushed hard for transparency on U.S. trade and campaign finance, but has been far less aggressive in disclosing his own personal finances.
Now his wife and campaign confidante, Jane OMeara Sanders, is defending the senators decision not to file a candidate personal finance disclosure and talking about the purchase of a new vacation home.
Sanders and his campaign asked the Federal Election Commission for two 45-day extensions, in mid-May and late June, on filing the personal finance disclosures candidates are usually required to produce, and then decided not to file at all once he dropped out of the race and endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Jane Sanders confirmed Thursday.
I guess our campaign just said why bother, said the wife of the Vermont independent senator who challenged Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
FEC officials confirmed Sanders was excused from filing after dropping out of the race.
Jane Sanders said the disclosure would have been very similar to personal finance reports Sanders has filed annually as a U.S. senator. Theres no new information, she said.
Sanders, a champion of transparency in other realms, came under some criticism Thursday for not applying the same principle to himself.
Richard Skinner, a policy analyst with the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based pro-transparency group, said the FEC may have been a little too generous with the deadline extensions it allowed for Sanders. It sure looks like the Sanders campaign abused this, Skinner said.
On another financial matter, Jane Sanders said she and her husband paid cash $575,000 for the four-bedroom summer house they recently bought in North Hero, Vermont, on the Lake Champlain shore. She said she sold her share of her familys long-time vacation home in Bridgeton, Maine, to her brother for $150,000, added some money from her retirement account and from an advance her husband got on a book he is writing to come up with the money to buy the couples third home.
They also own property in Burlington, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.
#1: Jameson To: cranky (#0)
Seriously, $575 isn't a lot for a beach house.....
Bernie's a senator - he makes good money
Jameson posted on 2016-08-18 20:16:56 Reply Private Reply
#2: cranky To: Jameson (#1)
$575,000 is a lot of cash.
What he spent it on is irrelevant.
He should still account for where the money came from.
cranky posted on 2016-08-18 20:25:20 Reply Private Reply
#3: Jameson To: cranky (#2)
yeah...
Senators make $174 a year - He's been making good cash for years - good for him! buy what ever you want!
Don't envy his vaca home!
Jameson posted on 2016-08-18 20:51:06 Reply Private Reply
#4: cranky To: Jameson (#3)
Yep.
Just account from where the money came from.
Salary, campaign contributions, speeches, peddling influence, etc.
To Bernie I would say : Just tell me where you got the money for the house, Bernie or keep your yap shut about campaign finance transparency.
cranky posted on 2016-08-18 21:51:31 Reply Private Reply
#5: buckeroo To: cranky (#0)
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
buckeroo posted on 2016-08-18 21:52:44 Reply Private Reply
#6: ConservingFreedom To: cranky (#4)
He never said anything about being-bought-off-to-stop-campaigning finance transparency.
ConservingFreedom posted on 2016-08-18 21:54:52 Reply Private Reply
#7: cranky To: ConservingFreedom (#6)
Well, that's true enough, I guess.
That willl teach me to make assumptions.
cranky posted on 2016-08-18 22:02:42 Reply Private Reply
#8: jeremiad To: Jameson (#3)
jeremiad posted on 2016-08-20 16:49:22 Reply Private Reply
#9: HomerBohn To: cranky (#0)
HomerBohn posted on 2016-08-27 10:24:06 Reply Private Reply