Biden administration officials may have broken the law by hiding pandemic-era small business loans to abortion giant Planned Parenthood, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said Monday.
Ernst, who chairs the committee that oversees that Small Business Administration (SBA), said evidence has emerged that agency officials disbursed and forgave Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to Planned Parenthood, even after the organization was found ineligible for the loans, Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak first reported.
Top agency officials under Biden, including SBA Administrator Isabella Guzman, allegedly hid their loan dealings with Planned Parenthood by using the code word “Benghazi” in emails, Ernst said.
“We now know that after the SBA Biden officials met, planned and strategized (over ‘Benghazi’), keeping the White House involved, approximately $90 million in Planned Parenthood SBA PPP loans and interest on the loans were forgiven by the Biden administration,” she said.
Ernst has asked the Department of Justice to initiate an investigation into her findings under a statute that carries up to three years of imprisonment for anyone who tries to conceal a federal record, a letter obtained by the outlet reads.
During the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, the SBA under President Trump’s first administration sent more than $80 million in PPP loans to Planned Parenthood and its affiliates after they “self-certified” as eligible.
Republicans at the time were outraged and wrote to the agency demanding it disqualify the abortion giant from PPP. The following month, the SBA sent letters to the organization and its affiliates notifying them of their ineligibility and asking for repayment.
Ernst said SBA never received the money back, and by the time President Joe Biden began his term, the affiliates received another round of payments.
Republicans pressed the SBA in April 2021 about “the steps the agency took once Planned Parenthood affiliates were deemed ineligible for SBA Loans,” the senator wrote.
That same month, “the SBA’s top lawyer, Peggy Hamilton,” wrote an email to agency leadership with the “subject line ‘Benghazi (PPP/PPH) Decisions.’ The context suggested that Benghazi was a code word for Planned Parenthood,” according to the report.
The email asked staff to review loans to nonprofit PPP applicants about eligibility and “inform WH as decisions are made.”
In one direct message, Hamilton seemed to reference the code, writing, “Can I schedule a meeting so we can decision Benghazi (Planned Parenthood)?”
“Yes, let’s talk Benghazi,” staff replied.
Ernst wrote in her letter that it “strains credulity to think SBA’s General Counsel Peggy Hamilton was doing anything other than hiding her Planned Parenthood records from Congressional and public scrutiny and oversight.”
“That’s not something she is allowed to do under federal law, and, as a lawyer for almost three decades, she knew that,” Ernst wrote.
SBA officials continued to use the code word in communications in the summer of 2021 following more pressure from Republicans and a congressional hearing, according to the report. One of the officials allegedly involved is Arthur Plews, who went on to become the SBA’s chief of staff.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) pressed Guzman at a May 2021 hearing about $17 million in PPP funding that went to Planned Parenthood after the SBA had deemed the organization and its affiliates ineligible.
“You believe you are above the law. … It looks like you are specifically hiding this information from us,” Paul said at the time.
Two days after the hearing, agency officials wrote in the “Benghazi” email chain about setting up a meeting to “discuss forgiveness.” The following month, Guzman set up a Microsoft Teams meeting called “Benghazi (PPP/PPH) Decision,” according to the report, which cites unearthed internal records.
“If someone tried to search for government records related to Planned Parenthood’s loans and loan forgiveness … this meeting would not have appeared, as again it was concealed as Benghazi,” Ernst pointed out. “PPH is not an acronym used for the abortion provider, which is sometimes initialized PPFA, for Planned Parenthood for America.”
She said:
If other SBA Biden officials are complicit in conspiring with SBA’s General Counsel Peggy Hamilton and Administration [sic] Guzman to conceal or attempt to conceal federal records and evade public records retention laws, that is in clear violation of 18 U.S.C. S2017 and deserves investigation for potential Federal Records Act violations.
The senator added that the alleged conspirators “could currently work in the White House.”
Ernst’s findings come after the DOJ released a report concluding that the Biden DOJ collaborated with abortion groups like Planned Parenthood to target pro-life activists for FACE Act prosecutions.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.