The case has to do with students who were defrauded by for-profit college who were stuck with student loans that the Obama-Biden Administration had decided should not be collected. DeVos refused to enforce the debt relief once she became Secretary of Education.
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel a year ago provided background information on the lawsuit involved (DeVos and Education Dept. could face new sanctions for violating a court order Washington Post 01/08/2020:
A federal judge is weighing higher fines for the Education Department after the federal agency disclosed that it pursued scores of additional borrowers for debt collection — violating a court order.Stratford piece from this week describes the current situation:
Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco agreed this week to consider a request by former Corinthian Colleges students to increase the $100,000 fine she levied against the department in October. The judge imposed those sanctions and held Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt for pursuing loans owed by 16,000 students from the defunct for-profit chain despite a May 2018 order halting collections.
The Biden administration is backing former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as she tries to avoid having to testify in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s lengthy delays and sweeping denials of student loan forgiveness claims.This is bad in itself because DeVos shouldn't be protected from legitimate requests for testimony. If she is worried about incriminating herself, she can plead the Fifth Amendment. It's also bad because it indicates that Biden hasn't lost all of his fondness for draconian laws against debtors that resulted in his notorious support of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. Seventeen other ConservaDem Senators joined Biden in supporting it. Two of them, Tom Carper of Delaware and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, are still serving. Some of the better-known among the others were Evan Bayh of Indiana, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Daniel Inouye of Michigan, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Bill Nelson of Florida, and even Harry Reid of Nevada.
The Justice Department joined with DeVos on Monday to fight a subpoena seeking her deposition as part of a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of some 160,000 former for-profit college students seeking loan forgiveness on the grounds that they were defrauded.
DeVos is no longer the defendant in the lawsuit since she resigned from office Jan. 7 in the wake of the Capitol riots. But lawyers for the student borrowers say they need her testimony to get to the bottom of why her agency for years slow-walked the loan forgiveness claims and then began churning out denial letters with little explanation.
Democrats for four years slammed DeVos’ handling of student loan forgiveness for defrauded borrowers under a program known as “borrower defense to repayment.” President Joe Biden has vowed to reverse DeVos’ approach and restore Obama-era policies that were designed to more easily relieve the debts of students who were misled or cheated by their college.
But the Justice Department under the Biden administration is now coming to DeVos’ defense in the lawsuit, teaming up with her personal attorney this week to fight the subpoena compelling her testimony.
More ominously, it may also be a signal that Biden's Justice Department may be sympathetic to de facto immunity of former Trump-Pence Administration officials from valid legal requirements. And that would be very bad.
Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur of TYT have a "salty" take on Biden's Justice Department siding with now-private citizen Betsy DeVos in this matter, Biden Protecting Betsy DeVos ... 02/11/2021 broadcast:
No comments:
Post a Comment