Whistleblower News From The Inside -- March 31, 2017

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team

Trump University $25 million settlement approved — Thousands of former Trump University students will get most of their money back after a court approved the $25 million settlement.  Nearly 4,000 former students submitted claims and those who are eligible could get back about 90% of their money. The settlement was agreed to last November, just 10 days after Donald Trump won the presidential election, but still needed court approval, which came today, despite one former student’s objection to the settlement. CNN 

Former Oakland charter schools director charged with fraud — Benford “Ben” Chavis, 59, who ran the American Indian Model Schools in Oakland, faces six felony counts of mail fraud and money laundering, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco. Chavis allegedly applied for and received more than $1 million in federal grant funding from 2006 to 2012 that he said would be used for the charter schools. The money was instead used for lease payments on properties Chavis owned. SF Gate

2 White House officials helped give Devin Nunes intelligence reports — A pair of White House officials helped provide Representative Devin Nunes of California, a Republican and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with the intelligence reports that showed that President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies. The revelation that White House officials disclosed the reports, which Mr. Nunes then discussed with Mr. Trump, is likely to fuel criticism that the intelligence chairman has been too eager to do the bidding of the Trump administration while his committee is supposed to be conducting an independent investigation of Russia’s meddling in the presidential election. NYT