March 14, 2019
According to federal authorities the scandal dubbed Varsity Blues, is the “largest college admission scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice”. On Tuesday 50 people were charged with participating in a fraudulent conspiracy involving college applications.
The scandal involved a total of 50 people, 33 of which are parents who paid William Rick Singer, owner of the Edge College Network, LLC, also known as “the Key”, to ensure their children’s admission to elite universities, which they would not otherwise have qualified for based on their own merits. Singer bribed proctors, and arranged for the students’ college entrance exams, the SAT and ACT to be corrected to achieve top scores. He also created fake athletic profiles and bribed athletic coaches and college administrators to go along with his fraudulent operation.
Not surprising, the families involved in this despicable scam, as described by U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling “are a catalog of wealth and privilege”. In some cases parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to doctor their childrens’ credentials. Another not so shocking detail about those who attempted to use their power and wealth to game the system is that according to the Washington Free Beacon only one of the individuals, out of the 50 charged “gave consistently to Republican candidates”. Most of the others predominately donated to Democrat candidates.
One of the more famous of the parents involved in this scheme, Felicity Huffman, the actress best known for her role on “Desperate Housewives”, has donated generously to Democratic candidates over the years. According to the Federal Election Commission site she has made thousands of dollars of contributions to both far- left Kamala harris (D-CA) and Barrack Obama. She was also a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton. Two years ago she even appeared at the Golden Globes award show in a pantsuit claiming that it was in honor of Hillary Clinton.
Felicity Huffman and her husband, the actor William H. Macy, who was not charged, paid $15,000 to The Key’s fraudulent charitable foundation, The Key worldwide Foundation, “KWF” to participate in the college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of their oldest daughter. Incredibly as the bribe was disguised as a charitable donation, those participating in this scam were able to deduct it from their tax obligations.
According to Singer, and transcripts from FBI monitored phone conversations, he advised Huffman and Macy to claim that their daughter needed extra time to take the SAT so that she would be able to have it administered at a “controlled” testing center where he could arrange for a third party to purport to proctor their daughter’s test and secretly correct her answers afterwards. On a practice SAT exam taken on her own, Huffman’s daughter scored just over 1000, which is average. On the exam fraudulently corrected, and sent to prospective colleges, her score was 1420 (in the top 5% of all test takers). Singer agreed to wear a “wire”, recording those indicted in this scheme, including Macy and Huffman, making it clear that they were aware of, and agreed to the actions that were taken
Laughably, at the SAG Award show last year, during his acceptance speech Macy thanked Trump for making his drunkard loser character, Frank Gallagher on Showtimes “Shameless” appear “more normal”.
Hypocritically while outwardly supporting political candidates who proclaim that income inequality creates an uneven playing field between the rich and poor, and that the rich don’t pay their “fair share” Huffman and her husband used their wealth and power to steal a spot at an elite school for their daughter, from another child who actually worked hard and deserved the spot. Then they deducted their bribe from their taxes.
Another parent who participated in this reprehensible scam is Jane Buckingham, the founder of a marketing firm called Trendera, and also a friend of Huffman’s. The two were pictured together at a book launch party for Buckingham a few years back.
Buckingham paid $50,000 to Singer’s KWF for someone else to take her son’s ACT test for him. Incredibly, her son never actually sat for the test, yet he received an almost perfect score of 35 out of a possible 36. Buckingham has also donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Democrat party and progressive Democrat candidates who rail against the inequities between the rich and poor, including Tim Kaine, Barack Obama and Kirsten Gillibrand. According to the New York Post just a few days before being charged Buckingham co-hosted a fundraiser for Gillibrand.
The hypocrisy is unending. An Instagram post by Buckingham less than a year ago stated “Don’t Cheat”- she added the comment “Apply it to all aspects of life and you’ll probably be ok.”
Ironically based on FEC data, and other public information about those charged, it appears that most of the defendants in this case favor the Democrat party, yet most assuredly big government leftists will use this reprehensible scandal to advocate for greater income redistribution, reasoning that those with less financial resources are denied the same opportunities as the wealthy. In reality the main takeaway from the exposure of these crimes is that when given the opportunity there will always be those willing to break laws, and act immorally for personal gain. Not incidentally, our country already does engage in significant income redistribution, resulting in the poorest of our country being among the richest in the world. And thanks to our laws and justice system already in place this scandal was uncovered, and those involved will pay the price.
Further, allowing for different standards for various applicants such as affirmative action, giving additional time to take standardized tests due to a purported “disability”, and the subjective “wholistic” approach most colleges take when evaluating a prospective student (ex. giving or subtracting points for subjective attributes), makes the application process opaque, creating motivation and opportunity for those inclined to “game” the process.
Lastly, this debacle proves that power concentrated in the hands of wealthy, liberal elites is never a good thing,
