Thursday, January 2, 2020
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) closed out 2019 with another major fundraising victory. His presidential campaign announced Thursday that it raised more than $34.5 million in the final three months of the year.
The money came in the form of 1.8 million individual contributions, the campaign said, averaging $18.53 apiece. Notably, nearly 300,000 people gave to Sanders’ campaign for the first time in the fourth quarter.
Since Sanders joined the 2020 race last February, he has raised $96 million and accepted 5 million donations. According to his campaign, 99.9 percent of his donors have given less than the maximum $2,800 allowed by law, suggesting that they could continue fueling his operation as early voting begins next month in Iowa and New Hampshire.
In a written statement, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said his boss was “proving each and every day that working class Americans are ready and willing to fully fund a campaign that stands up for them and takes on the biggest corporations and the wealthy.”
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Monday, December 30, 2019
"At this point, I see no reason he cannot continue campaigning without limitation and, should he be elected, I am confident he has the mental and physical stamina to fully undertake the rigors of the Presidency," wrote University of Vermont Medical Center cardiologist Martin LeWinter, who has treated the candidate.
Sanders' campaign released letters from LeWinter and two other doctors on Monday after promising for months to provide comprehensive medical information about the 78-year-old senator. The campaign was criticized for releasing limited information after he was hospitalized in Las Vegas on October 1 and for failing to disclose that he had suffered a heart attack for days.
LeWinter wrote that Sanders had made "an uneventful recovery" from his heart attack and that his heart function is "stable and well-preserved" and his blood pressure and heart rate is above average. "While he did suffer modest heart muscle damage, he has been doing very well since," LeWinter wrote.
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Wednesday, December 18, 2019
In a historic moment Wednesday night, U.S. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) voted to impeach President Donald Trump.
Vermont's sole delegate to the U.S. House joined a majority of his colleagues in seeking removal of the president. It marked the third time that an American president has been impeached.
Welch supported both articles up for a vote on Wednesday. The first accused Trump of abusing the powers of the presidency by seeking Ukrainian interference in the 2020 election. The second alleged that the president obstructed Congress' investigation of the matter.
“It’s the most significant vote I have taken in Congress,” Welch told Seven Days earlier Wednesday. “It’s not difficult because the evidence is overwhelming.”
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Saturday, November 23, 2019
"The evidence I've seen is a clear breach of the oath of office and an abuse of the public trust in pursuit of a private advantage," Welch told Seven Days, adding that he would "reserve final judgement until all the information is in."
As a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Welch spent the previous two weeks hearing testimony from civil servants who described the president's efforts to secure a Ukrainian government investigation of a political rival, former vice president Joe Biden.
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Wednesday, November 13, 2019
“Now there is one witness, one witness that they won’t bring in front of us — they won’t bring in front of the American people,” Jordan said. “And that’s the guy who started it all: the whistleblower.”
He was referring to the unnamed Central Intelligence Agency analyst who first sounded the alarm in August that Trump may have halted military aid to Ukraine in order to secure an investigation of former vice president Joe Biden. “This anonymous so-called whistleblower,” Jordan continued, “who is the reason we’re all sitting here today — we’ll never get a chance to question that individual.”
Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) saw his opening. “I’d say to my colleague,” Welch said, turning to face Jordan, “I’d be glad to have the person who started it all come in and testify.” He gestured to the witness chair. “President Trump is welcome to take a seat right there.”
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Thursday, October 31, 2019
On a largely party-line vote of 232 to 196, the House approved a package of rules governing how the impeachment inquiry would be conducted. The rules direct the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to conduct public hearings and then report to the House Judiciary Committee, which would draft any articles of impeachment.
Thursday's vote formalizes a process that has been ongoing for weeks in the basement offices of the intelligence committee, on which Welch serves. Even as the full House debated the measure, the committee was taking testimony behind closed doors from Timothy Morrison, who resigned his position hours earlier as the top Russia expert at the National Security Council.
Welch, who long resisted endorsing impeachment, changed his tune in July — citing Trump's refusal to cooperate with Congress and his racist attacks on lawmakers of color. He has since criticized the president for calling on the Ukrainian government to investigate former vice president Joe Biden.
"The House of Representatives will soon answer the fundamental question of whether it is appropriate for a president of the United States to solicit assistance for his political campaign from a foreign power while withholding from that country congressionally-approved military assistance," Welch said in a written statement Thursday. "With today’s historic vote, we now have a clear road map on how our committee will present evidence to the House and the American people, and how the House will answer this question."
Disclosure: Paul Heintz worked as Peter Welch's communications director from November 2008 to March 2011.
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Wednesday, October 23, 2019
“They were basically in a scream therapy session, denouncing what they regarded as treachery … It was total boilerplate talking points from Russia,” Welch said. He paused to correct what may have been a Freudian slip. “From Trump.”
The Republicans had amassed outside the rooms in which members of three House committees have been taking testimony in recent weeks from witnesses in the impeachment probe. They were demanding to be let in, though only committee members are permitted to enter the so-called Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
“I say 'scream therapy' and I’m actually not kidding,” Welch said of the impromptu press conference outside the committee rooms. “There were not analytical categories you could land on. No factual basis. Just a lot of rage.”
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Friday, October 18, 2019
Former vice president Joe Biden plans to travel to Vermont next month, his campaign said Friday. The brief announcement included no details, other than the date of his visit: November 9.
R. Christopher Di Mezzo, a spokesperson for the Vermont Democratic Party, said the organization had not been contacted by the Biden campaign and had no additional information.
The trip will bring the former vice president to the home state of a top rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who picked up 86 percent of the vote in Vermont's 2016 presidential primary.
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Thursday, October 17, 2019
Four years after they were accused of cheating customers out of $100 million, a group of Vermont gasoline distributors has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit for a fraction of that amount.
The proposed settlement, filed Thursday in Vermont Superior Court, calls for the companies to pay $1.5 million to gasoline consumers in northwestern Vermont. Up to $500,000 of that could go to the lawyers who brought the suit and more could be subtracted for the cost of distributing the money.
The agreement, which must be approved by a judge, includes no admission of wrongdoing, though it requires the companies to abide by written antitrust policies and requires employees who set the price of petroleum products to undergo antitrust training. The defendants are R.L. Vallee, Inc., which owns the Maplefields gas station chain; S.B. Collins, Inc., which owns the Jolley chain; Champlain Farms/Wesco; and Champlain Oil Company, which operates Jiffy Mart-branded stores and was acquired last year by Massachusetts-based Global Partners.
Those who owned a car, bought gas from one of the four companies and lived in Chittenden, Franklin or Grand Isle counties between April 2012 and June 2015 are eligible to claim a portion of the funds. A settlement administrator was charged with contacting potential recipients, who can claim a standard amount or provide receipts or credit card statements showing how much gas they bought during the three-year period.
The suit, filed in June 2015 by Fairfax resident Jacob Kent and five other Vermonters, alleged that the companies had conspired to "fix the price of wholesale and retail gasoline in northwestern Vermont" at artificially high levels. At the time, they controlled more than 64 percent of gas stations in Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle counties and sometimes earned profits twice the national average, the plaintiffs alleged.
The companies denied the charges and argued that prices in the region were, in fact, competitive. According to the settlement agreement, they “maintain that they have acted completely independently of each other, are competitors in the sale of gasoline, have not conspired in any way, have set gas prices fairly based on existing market forces, and did not violate any laws.”
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Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Throughout a three-hour Democratic debate in Ohio, the senator from Vermont appeared energetic, forceful and on-message as ever. If there were doubts that he could perform under pressure after such a major medical event, he put them to rest — at least, for now.
“I’m healthy. I’m feeling great,” Sanders said as CNN anchor Erin Burnett attempted to change the subject from opioid-industry abuses to the senator’s own health. “But I would like to respond to that question.”
Only after linking pharmaceutical companies to fossil fuel companies and the perils of “unfettered capitalism” would Sanders address Burnett’s original question: How would he prove to voters that he was “up to the stress of the presidency?”
“We are going to be mounting a vigorous campaign all over this country,” he responded, plugging a “Bernie’s Back” rally this Saturday in Queens, N.Y. “That is how I think I can reassure the American people.”
Even before he left the debate stage, Sanders’ campaign confirmed a Washington Post report that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a darling of the progressive movement, would endorse his candidacy and join him at the rally in Queens. Later Tuesday night, the campaign announced that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) would also endorse him.
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