Poor Bernie Sanders. He went out of the 2016 primary looking like a piece of lamb stuck in Hillary’s maw. Now, he’s back in the news fighting a potential federal bank fraud charge against him and his wife like a lion.

The senator from Vermont, a democratic socialist who runs as an “independent,” is trying to blame the ongoing FBI investigation on President Donald Trump and his Vermont campaign manager, Brady Toensing, who requested the probe.

“My wife is about the most honest person I know,” Sanders told CNN host Erin Burnett. “All I will tell you now, Erin, is that it is a sad state of affairs in America, you not only have politicians being destroyed publicly…when you go after people’s wives that is pathetic.”

Wow. As if Trump knows nothing of what it feels like to be attacked publicly or having his 11-year-old son made the butt of jokes by liberals.

Bernie’s lame attempt at deflection and spin won’t work. This is one investigation that has teeth, and with a new acting FBI director at the helm, it’s not going away as just another “matter.”

What’s at stake is Bernie’s good name, reputation, livelihood, and his freedom. The same goes for his much younger looking wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, former president of Burlington College in northern Vermont from 2004 to 2011.

The FBI probe will determine — or not — whether Jane inflated donation amounts to obtain a $10 million bank loan for the college. The pledges fell massively short of the $2 million Jane claimed in bank documents. The college eventually went bankrupt.

Another question is whether holier-than-thou Bernie pressured the bank to award the loan, which would make him an accomplice to fraud.

We feel sorry for Bernie. There’s good evidence that Hillary screwed him out of the presidency and it’s looking like DNC worker Seth Rich may have paid the price with his life for leaking emails about Hillary’s plan to scuttle Bernie’s campaign to Wikileaks.

The thing is, Bernie, you can’t blame Trump for the heat you’re facing with the FBI. That match was lit a year ago by your buddy, former President Barack Obama, when he initiated the probe.

Bernie’s real beef is with Democrats, but he’s playing chicken with Republicans.