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Saturday, October 12, 2019

With gloves off, Elizabeth Warren attacks Betsy DeVos — and the education secretary hits back - The Washington Post

With gloves off, Elizabeth Warren attacks Betsy DeVos — and the education secretary hits back - The Washington Post

With gloves off, Elizabeth Warren attacks Betsy DeVos — and the education secretary hits back




Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Elizabeth Warren, the U.S. senator from Massachusetts seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, sparred on Twitter this week after a federal judge criticized DeVos for flagrantly violating a court order to stop collecting loan payments from students of a for-profit college that closed amid scandal.
On Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco said in a court filing that she was “deeply disturbed” by the Education Department’s “lack of compliance with the injunction … and the sheer scale of violations.” Kim said possible punishment could include a finding of contempt and monetary sanctions.



A day earlier in a hearing, the judge had gone further: “I’m not sending anyone to jail yet, but it’s good to know I have that ability. I’m most concerned with helping the people who were harmed by this — this problem that the government created.”
The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment about what the judge said or about Warren’s comments.
The judge’s warnings prompted Warren to tweet this, along with a link to a Bloomberg News article: “Secretary @BetsyDeVosED is such a failure at @usedgov that she may be held in contempt for refusing to follow the law & stop punishing scammed students. Think about that: she’d rather risk sanctions or even jail than do her job to help America’s students.”
And this: “A federal judge was ‘astounded’ by @BetsyDeVosED’s treatment of student borrowers. She said ‘At best it is gross negligence, at worst it’s an intentional flouting’ of judicial orders to help students.”
And this: “@usedgov needs to follow the law & cancel the student loans of scammed Corinthian CONTINUE READING: With gloves off, Elizabeth Warren attacks Betsy DeVos — and the education secretary hits back - The Washington Post