Did Olympia Snow deceive us? Lawsuit alleges profits from For-Profit Education

[KoKo]

Did lawsuit factor in Olympia Snowe's departure?
By Bill Allison and Lindsay Young Feb 29 2012 6:35 p.m.

Last August, while Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, was in the midst of an intensive round of fundraising for her 2012 reelection bid, a four-year-old civil lawsuit alleging fraud by an education company in which she and her husband are heavily invested became public.

Nationally, most of the coverage of Snowe's decision to drop her reelection bid has focused on the centrist Republican's frustration with the polarized politics on Capitol Hill. But in Maine, a few newspapers have speculated that her husband's legal entanglements had a role in Snowe's sudden and surprising decision, which left her with more than $3 million in her campaign coffers and her party without a Senate candidate less than three weeks before the filing deadline for Maine's June 12 primary.

According to the senator's most recent financial disclosure form, she and her husband, former Maine Gov. John McKernan Jr., have investments worth between $2 million and $10 million in Education Management Corp., a Pittsburgh-based company that operates for-profit higher education institutions. McKernan is chairman of the board of directors of the company, now embroiled in a lawsuit in which the federal goverment, 11 states and the District of Columbia are seeking to recover a portion of the $11 billion in federal student aid that the education firm has received since July 2003.

Originally filed in April 2007 by a pair of whistleblowers, the lawsuit alleges that the company violated a federal law that prohibits schools from paying admissions officers based on the number of students they recruit and enroll. Those numbers can affect a school's revenues because more students mean a school is potentially eligible for more federal aid dollars. The whistleblowers alleged, and provided documents indicating, that they were paid bounties for the number of students they enrolled.

http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2012/snowe /

-----------------
Before Retirement, Olympia Snowe’s Husband Dealing With For-Profit Education Corruption Lawsuit
By: David Dayen Sunday March 4, 2012 8:45 am

We’re hearing all the paeans to Olympia Snowe today, that brave bipartisan moderate who was shamefully thrust out of Congress by extremists. The fact that Snowe had no credible challenger with two weeks before the deadline for filing doesn’t play into this, nor does the fact that she didn’t actually show the courage claimed in the article, at least not for the last couple years. Snowe intoned heavily about the dysfunctional Senate – she voted to keep the filibuster process, one of the main if not the main sources of that dysfunction, at the beginning of last year – and the inability for the parties to work together to solve the nation’s problems. It’s all so sad. All those brave bipartisan dealmakers are gone. She’s such a martyr.

That, or she left before a major corruption lawsuit came to light.

-----

The Justice Department complaint has been public since last August, and Snowe has been dinged for it locally in Maine. The fact that Snowe and her husband may have personally benefited from the ripoff of low-income college students hasn’t really entered the conversation. But often the cover story isn’t the real story. Maybe this is one of those times.

Meanwhile, as to Snowe’s replacement, it looks like every major Democrat in the state is gearing up for a shot at the seat. That includes the former Governor, John Baldacci, and both members of Congress, Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree, who confirmed her interest to the Huffington Post.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/03/01/before-retiremen...

[russspeakeasy]

1. She is a politician. The answer should be obvious.

[KoKo]

3. Yes...you said it well. The ANSWER is Obvious.. There's nothing else to say..

[EmeraldCityGrl]

2. As stated in my post

after her announcement, "what lies on the horizon that she cannot stomach?"

and "I trust Republicans as far as I can throw them."

How many posts on hear called her "better than most" and thought
she was flipping off the Rep. party.

Wake up people. There is no such thing as an honorable Republican.

We'll see how this plays out but bet she was just better than most at hiding her
scumbag Republican character.

[KoKo]

4. I think what's interesting about the new revelations about Snow's Husband reveals...

is that Democratic leaning sites were the first to martyr her...and point out her background about how she came to the US and what she suffered ...as if she was a martyr to the Repug Noise and Antics.

It appears that her interests in resigning may or might have been more "pragmatic" having to do with her husband and her own "retirement benefits," rather than the "Good of the USA."

It seems this story is worth following for many reasons.

I'd hoped folks would read the links (and some may have) to get the bigger picture about why Snow's retiring is much more than we were led to believe from our own Dem sites and of course the Repug sites who didn't really mention that "pesky lawsuit" that was known since last August.

Just saying....