Under normal circumstances, when a process is found to be corrupt, any outcome or recommendation from that chain of events is either cancelled or put on hold until the full extent of the corruption can be uncovered. Essentially, good practice dictates that you start from scratch, to ensure that there is no undue influence.

But that’s not how the Obama Administration works when the final outcome is something they want. Displaying the “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” attitude they’ve come to be known for on everything from health care and spending to cap & trade and net neutrality, the Obama administration is on the verge of adopting rules governing for-profit educational institutions, even though they have emerged from a wholly corrupt process that, to paraphrase Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), may end up with people going to prison.

It all started last summer when Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, held a hearing on whether or not students attending for-profit colleges should be allowed to receive federal financial aid. Harkin strongly supports a proposed Department of Education (DoE) rule, known as Gainful Employment, which would severely damage those institutions and kill higher education opportunities for thousands of Americans.

It was odd that one of the witnesses Senator Harkin chose as an “expert” on for-profit colleges had no expertise in the industry whatsoever. Steve Eisman is a Wall Street short-seller with no background or expertise on education policy. But with the stock prices of private-sector colleges and the companies that run them risking collapse, he does have a lot to gain by ensuring that happens.

This was just the first of what would be many curious developments in the Progressives’ crusade against for-profit education.

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The crusade against for-profit colleges has been raging for the better part of a year with Congressional hearings and the potential for new regulations making financial aid for students attending those school impossible to get. Democrats have declared for-profit schools unworthy of educating students in need of financial aid, which would disproportionally harm lower income and minority students, who make up a large percentage of their student body. But while these for-profit school have be fighting for their lives, others, with the apparent help of regulators from the Department of Education, have been fighting “for profits” of their own, and this starting to catch the eye of elected officials in Washington.

The first red-flag in the crusade against for-profit colleges came when Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) held a hearing where Steven Eisman, a noted Wall Street short-seller, was called to testify against for-profit colleges, something about which he had zero expertise. Then the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) discovered the possible explanation as to why Mr. Eisman was so interested in an issue in which he had no expertise. From documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, CREW discovered that, as the Daily Caller described it, “…Eisman and other short sellers may have been given advanced notice of key regulatory moves by the agency, which would have allowed them to position themselves early in the market, and profit handsomely.”

This used to be called “insider trading,” a term from the 80s that seems to have gone out of vogue, but is still illegal.

CREW sent a letter to Robert Khuzami, Director of the Division of Enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, informing him of their findings and calling for an investigation into possible illegal activities by Eisman and several people inside the Department of Education who, as the emails and documents they obtained suggest, may have fed Eisman and his colleagues the information.

A further investigation by the Daily Caller found that, in addition to Eisman, another short-seller, Manuel Asensio, a man “securities regulators debarred…from employment as an investment banker for the rest of his life for refusing to answer questions and provide documents about his investment practices,” is now lobbying against for-profit colleges.

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Transcript:

SEN. TOM COBURN (R), OKLAHOMA: I want to send a couple of messages to my colleagues in the House.

If you voted no and you vote yes, and you lose your election, and you think any nomination to a federal position isn’t going to be held in the Senate, I’ve got news for you. It’s going to be held.

Number two is, if you get a deal, a parochial deal for you or your district, I’ve already instructed my staff and the staff of seven other senators that we will look at every appropriations bill, at every level, at every instance, and we will outline it by district, and we will associate that with the buying of your vote. So, if you think you can cut a deal now, and it not come out until after the election, I want to tell you that isn’t going to happen. And be prepared to defend selling your vote in the House.