Judge: By Resigning, DeVos Opens Door to Deposition on Student Debt Relief – Courthouse News Service
As a private citizen, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos can no longer avoid answering questions in a class action claiming her policies permanently damaged the finances of student borrowers defrauded by for-profit colleges.
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — As a cabinet official, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was virtually immune to demands that she be grilled about long delays and mass denials of student debt relief claims in a pending lawsuit. When she resigned from office last week, that changed.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued a terse, 1-paragraph order stating that because DeVos is no longer Education secretary, she is now fair game for a deposition.
A prior order temporarily forbade deposing Secretary DeVos, but “it imposed no such restriction regarding Citizen DeVos,” Alsup wrote.
DeVos quit her job Jan. 7 in the wake of a deadly mob attack on the U.S. Capitol that many blame President Donald Trump for inciting, writing in her resignation letter that “we each have a moral obligation to exercise good judgment and model the behavior we hope [impressionable children] would emulate.”