From: New American

The timing of the sellout by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) last Thursday, May 6, on legislation to audit the Federal Reserve could not have been more auspicious — or more suspicious. After pledging for months that he was going to offer an amendment in the Senate identical to “Audit the Fed” legislation in the House (H.R. 1207) authored by Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), Sanders caved in to pressures from the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve.

In a last-minute switch, Sanders agreed to substitute a watered-down version of the audit as an amendment to financial reform legislation sponsored by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.). The new Sanders amendment would provide the administration, the Fed, and Members of Congress with a certain level of cover, allowing them to claim that they had supported auditing the Fed, while at the same time allowing the Fed to continue most of its operations in secret, beyond the scrutiny of Congress and the public. The effort to push the Sanders amendment through on a rush vote on May 6 failed thanks to the efforts of Senator David Vitter (R-La.), a fierce Fed critic, who insisted on a side-by-side vote of the Sanders sellout amendment with the original audit amendment. Those votes could come as early as Tuesday, May 11.

The Sanders flip-flop came less than 72 hours prior to the Federal Reserve announcing that it was opening a credit line to European central banks and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bailout bankrupt Greece and the crumbling euro. The massive bailout, which the Associated Press described as “a bold $1 trillion rescue by the European Union,” buoyed world markets, but is sure to be a very temporary fix.

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