{"id":178301,"date":"2016-08-20T20:46:59","date_gmt":"2016-08-21T02:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=178301"},"modified":"2016-08-20T20:50:11","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T02:50:11","slug":"how-bernie-sanders-beat-the-clock-and-avoided-disclosure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/08\/how-bernie-sanders-beat-the-clock-and-avoided-disclosure\/","title":{"rendered":"How Bernie Sanders beat the clock and avoided disclosure"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_178305\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-178305\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Sanders-Bernie-771x560.jpg\" alt=\"Bernie Sanders\" width=\"771\" height=\"560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Sanders-Bernie-771x560.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Sanders-Bernie-336x244.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Sanders-Bernie-768x558.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Sanders-Bernie-1170x850.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Sanders-Bernie.jpg 1438w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaking at a campaign rally in Vado in May.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As a Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/news\/Bernie-Sanders\" target=\"_blank\">Bernie Sanders<\/a> of Vermont vociferously argued for political transparency, especially when money was concerned.<\/p>\n<p>Sanders <a href=\"https:\/\/berniesanders.com\/issues\/money-in-politics\/\" target=\"_blank\">insisted<\/a>, for example, \u201con complete transparency regarding the funding of campaigns.\u201d He <a href=\"https:\/\/berniesanders.com\/issues\/money-in-politics\/\" target=\"_blank\">decried<\/a>\u00a0\u201chuge piles of undisclosed cash\u201d benefiting candidates.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This story comes from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/2016\/08\/18\/20074\/how-bernie-sanders-beat-clock-and-avoided-disclosure\" target=\"_blank\">Center for Public Integrity<\/a>, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative media organization in Washington, D.C. It\u2019s\u00a0part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/politics\/buying-president-2016?utm_campaign=syndication&amp;utm_source=yahoo-news&amp;utm_medium=taxonomy-link\" target=\"_blank\">Buying of the President 2016<\/a>. Tracking the candidates, political committees and nonprofits that are making this presidential election the most expensive in history.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/politics\/buying-president-2016?utm_campaign=syndication&amp;utm_source=yahoo-news&amp;utm_medium=taxonomy-link\" target=\"_blank\">Click here<\/a> to read more stories in this investigation.\u00a0Versions of this story were published with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/how-bernie-sanders-avoided-disclosing-his-personal-finances-n633081\" target=\"_blank\">NBC News<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/vtdigger.org\/2016\/08\/18\/bernie-sanders-beat-clock-avoided-disclosure\/\" target=\"_blank\">VTDigger<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/bernie-sanders-financial-disclosure_us_57b5fe43e4b03d513686fbdb?cps=gravity_2302_2734307973847117804\" target=\"_blank\">Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>But when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oge.gov\/Web\/OGE.nsf\/Public%20Financial%20Disclosure?openview\" target=\"_blank\">federal law<\/a>\u00a0required Sanders to reveal, by mid-May, current details of his personal finances, his campaign lawyer <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davelevinthal\/status\/725677061084446720\" target=\"_blank\">asked<\/a>\u00a0the Federal Election Commission for a 45-day extension.<\/p>\n<p>Request granted.<\/p>\n<p>On June 30, Sanders\u2019 campaign <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davelevinthal\/status\/748569228828106752\" target=\"_blank\">requested<\/a> a second 45-day extension, saying the senator had \u201cgood cause\u201d to delay because of his \u201ccurrent campaign schedule and officeholder duties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Again, regulators <a href=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/CmNxU_ZWYAA-A3S.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">approved<\/a> Sanders\u2019 punt.<\/p>\n<p>Now that Sanders\u2019 second extension has expired, spokesman Michael Briggs confirmed to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/politics\" target=\"_blank\">Center for Public Integrity<\/a> that the senator won\u2019t file a presidential campaign personal financial disclosure after all.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were told that since the senator no longer is a candidate there was no requirement to file,\u201d Briggs said.<\/p>\n<p>FEC spokesman Christian Hilland verified that Sanders has not filed a personal financial disclosure. He likewise confirmed that Sanders, who technically ceased to be a presidential candidate when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/news\/Hillary-Clinton\" target=\"_blank\">Hillary Clinton<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/07\/27\/us\/politics\/dnc-speakers-sanders-clinton.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">secured the Democratic nomination<\/a>\u00a0on July 26, is no longer required to file one.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oge.gov\/Web\/OGE.nsf\/All%20Advisories%20by%20Year\/A2E172617AC08FA185257E96005FBEBD\/$FILE\/8c49965d6b5a4dc6b2e2c1a61d724dfa5.pdf?open\" target=\"_blank\">2011 legal advisory<\/a> from the United States Office of Government Ethics provides Sanders cover, stating that \u201cthe requirement to file a Public Financial Disclosure Report \u2026 ends when the candidate is no longer seeking nomination or election to the office of president.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the one hand, who now \u2014 beside political voyeurs and snoopy journalists, perhaps \u2014 would care about the investments and income of an also-ran presidential candidate who hasn\u2019t been a major factor in Election 2016 for more than two months?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But on the other, Sanders expertly exploited a system that effectively allowed him to delay, delay, delay \u2014 all while he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/?ion=1&amp;espv=2#q=sanders+clinton+wall+street\" target=\"_blank\">chided<\/a> Clinton&#8217;s receipt of six-figure paydays for delivering closed-door speeches to officials at investment bank Goldman Sachs and <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2016\/04\/20\/news\/economy\/hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs\/\" target=\"_blank\">other<\/a> powerful special interests. (Both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/post-politics\/wp\/2016\/05\/17\/hillary-clinton-released-her-financial-disclosure-form-and-pressures-trump-to-do-the-same\/\" target=\"_blank\">Clinton<\/a> and Republican presidential nominee <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/learned-donald-trumps-personal-financial-disclosure-form\/story?id=39201218\" target=\"_blank\">Donald Trump<\/a> filed their personal financial disclosures on time in mid-May without asking for extensions.)<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, in the teeth of a Democratic primary where Sanders posed a bona fide threat to Clinton, voters couldn\u2019t definitively know whether Sanders \u2014 historically one of the Senate\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/pfds\/overview.php?type=W&amp;year=2014&amp;filter=S&amp;sort=A\" target=\"_blank\">least wealthy members<\/a> \u2014 suddenly parlayed his political fame into personal profit. Or, for that matter, whether he sustained financial distress.<\/p>\n<p>The form Sanders didn\u2019t file would have detailed his finances through the middle of May 2016.<\/p>\n<p>His most recent U.S. Senate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/3024186-eFD-Annual-Report-for-2015-Sanders-Bernard.html\" target=\"_blank\">disclosure<\/a>, which details only his 2015 assets, show his wealth concentrated in a collection of mutual funds owned by his wife, Jane Sanders.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond his Senate salary, Sanders himself draws a small pension from the government of Burlington, Vermont, where he once served as mayor. And he\u2019s also received a handful of modest honoraria for speeches and television show appearances, although he reported donating them to charity.<\/p>\n<p>Sanders also carried up to $50,000 in credit card debt and up to $1 million in mortgage debt, according to his 2015 U.S. Senate personal financial disclosure.<\/p>\n<p>Sanders filed that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/3024186-eFD-Annual-Report-for-2015-Sanders-Bernard.html\" target=\"_blank\">Senate disclosure document on June 6<\/a>. This somewhat undercuts his presidential campaign\u2019s argument, made around the same time, that Sanders was too busy campaigning to complete and submit a presidential disclosure covering his finances during early 2016.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing that a candidate who spent so much time talking about political reform &#8230; and was critical of Hillary Clinton\u2019s personal finances, chose not to let us know anything about his own,\u201d said policy analyst\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sunlightfoundation.com\/team\/rskinner\/\" target=\"_blank\">Richard Skinner<\/a> of the nonpartisan <a href=\"http:\/\/sunlightfoundation.com\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sunlight Foundation<\/a>, which advocates for political transparency.<\/p>\n<p>Had Sanders filed a personal financial disclosure report this month, it would have looked more or less like the ones Sanders had filed in the past, Briggs said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a couple decades\u2019 worth of congressional financial disclosure reports that show pretty much the same thing from year to year,\u201d Briggs said.<\/p>\n<p>The public will eventually find out how Sanders managed his assets while running for president: As a sitting senator, Sanders must next year file a personal financial disclosure with the U.S. Senate covering calendar year 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bernie Sanders expertly exploited a system that effectively allowed him to delay, delay, delay \u2014 all while he chided Hillary Clinton&#8217;s receipt of six-figure paydays for delivering closed-door speeches to officials at investment bank Goldman Sachs and other powerful special interests. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":178305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[708,705,226,706,116],"class_list":["post-178301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2016-election","tag-money-in-politics","tag-presidential-race","tag-transparency","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}