Vallee Accuses Sanders of Seeking Legal Retribution 'To Make a Point'

[George II]

POSTED BY PAUL HEINTZ ON FRI, DEC 14, 2018 AT 12:24 AM

In a federal court filing Thursday, a St. Albans fuel company accused Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) of using his government office to exact legal retribution against it for political purposes.

The company, R.L. Vallee, Inc., alleged that Sanders and his Vermont spokesman, Daniel McLean, sought to gin up a state prosecution and a class-action lawsuit after the company's CEO, Rodolphe "Skip" Vallee, produced a television advertisement attacking Sanders and his family.

A week after Vallee released the ad in September 2014, according to documents and testimony obtained by the company's lawyers, Sanders and McLean met with two members of the Vermont Attorney General's Office to discuss the senator's suspicion that the company engaged in anti-competitive practices. According to handwritten notes taken at the meeting by Assistant Attorney General Ryan Kriger, either Sanders or McLean suggested that the AG should "Bring [a] case just to make a point."

McLean emailed Kriger several times in the coming weeks to ask whether Attorney General Bill Sorrell would take action. In the end, he did not.

(more...)

https://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2018/12/14/vallee-accuses-sanders-of-seeking-legal-retribution-to-make-a-point

[TexasTowelie]

1. One item of note in the article was:

Sanders' office argued that the request was an over-broad "fishing expedition" and that Senate staffers could not be subpoenaed in their official capacities.

In an earlier article in Seven Days, it was noted:

"We requested information from Senator Sanders’s office regarding its involvement in a baseless lawsuit led by out-of-state class action attorneys against Vermont companies," Coffin wrote. "Senator Sanders has repeatedly demanded transparency in public institutions, yet he now asks a court to block access to evidence in his possession and relevant to the meritless lawsuit."

https://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2018/12/05/oil-baron-seeks-sanders-aides-testimony-in-price-fixing-suit

I agree that Sanders does have some transparency issues. There are the transparency issues mentioned in his lawsuit, then there are the transparency issues related to Bernie's refusal to provide full tax documents.

What is Bernie attempting to hide and why is he reluctant to provide transparency?