Sanders’ wife defends non-disclosure, vacation home buy

The party this week endorsed Clinton, giving the Democratic nominee a second ballot line in several states (most notably NY, where President Obama won 141,056 votes on the WFP line in 2012).

Bernie Sanders built his firebrand presidential campaign on calls for financial transparency. He decried “huge piles of undisclosed cash” benefiting candidates.

Again, regulators approved Sanders’ punt.

Now his wife and campaign confidante, Jane O’Meara Sanders, is defending the senator’s decision not to file a candidate personal finance disclosure and talking about the purchase of a new vacation home.

“During our campaign, we assembled a movement of millions of people ready to fight for the country we know we can become, said Sanders in an email to his supporters”.

FEC officials confirmed Sanders was excused from filing after dropping out of the race.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks at a rally in Washington in June.

“We were told that since the senator no longer is a candidate there was no requirement to file”, Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs told the Center. There’s a pretty important election coming up. The report notes that both Clinton and Trump filed their personal disclosure forms in May without asking for a delay. Or, for that matter, whether he sustained financial distress. Bernie Sanders has pushed hard for transparency on US trade and campaign finance, but has been far less aggressive in disclosing his own personal finances. Sanders has long bragged he is among the poorest member of the Senate. And he’s also received a handful of modest honoraria for speeches and television show appearances, although he reported donating them to charity.

Federal law required Sanders to reveal his most recent personal finances in the middle of May. And now that he is no longer a presidential contender, he no longer needs to submit his finances.

The Sanders campaign succeeded in moving the Democratic Party to the left-pressuring front-runner Hillary Clinton to adopt more progressive stances on issues ranging from trade policy, to living wages to tuition-free higher education; and playing a critical role in drafting a significantly more progressive platform than the party ran on in 2012.

While his last financial disclosure as U.S. Senator showed he carried sizable credit-card and mortgage debt, nebulous profits made during campaigning for president are not discernible.