The Dept of Ed issued a statement today that this was not about defaulted student loans. It was a criminal investigation. They won’t say what about, but it likely had to do with fraud or embezzlement.
That’s not to say that this guy shouldn’t be pissed, or that it wasn’t a complete overreaction. But it’s not about unpaid student loans, apparently.
“It was a criminal investigation.”
What is the FBI for?
Update: The television station that first reported this has updated their story to note that it wasn’t a SWAT team, but the federal Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The OIG disputes that the issue was a default, but refuses to explain further:
"A U.S. government official confirmed for News10 Wednesday morning federal agents with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), not local S.W.A.T., served the search warrant. The official would not say specifically why the raid took place. He did say the search was not related to student loans in default.
He went on to say OIG is a semi-independent branch of the U.S. Department of Education that executes warrants for criminal offenses such as student aid fraud and embezzlement of federal aid."
Er … that’s not much of an improvement. Armed federal officers broke into a house and placed themselves and the occupants at risk for a potential case of fraud or embezzlement? For someone who no longer lives there? I’ve changed the headline to reflect the changes in the original reporting, but this does nothing to change the ridiculous nature of this intrusion into a private home.
Assault is assault.
The woman wasn’t even there.
It is reasonable to expect that - even if the government were right - which they are not in this case - that they would excercise EXTREME discretion before assaulting an innocent man and his children in their home.
The chain of command need to be fired for cause, brought up[ on charges, and treated like the reckless asshats that they are - by definition - for this fiasco.
I was under the impression that the FBI was the agency that investigated Feredal crimes. But, I suppose, like everything else when we operated under the Constitutional restraints, that was then, this is now. And the sheep said....