(Washington, D.C.) The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was created to help keep small businesses afloat during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The keyword being “small.” Yet somehow, Planned Parenthood affiliates managed to secure PPP loans from the Biden Small Business Administration (SBA), even after they were notified of being ineligible. A mistake or purposeful negligence and favoritism? Unfortunately, it seems to be the latter.

Records obtained by the government watchdog, Functional Government Initiative, through a Freedom of Information Act request show that back in March 2021, Matt Collette, an attorney with Massey & Gail LLP, representing the Planned Parenthood affiliates, had sent an unsolicited email to then SBA Deputy General Counsel Nina Levine, requesting a meeting with then SBA General Counsel, Peggy Hamilton, to talk about the agency questioning the eligibility of 14 Planned Parenthood entities that had previously received PPP loans.

The next month, Collette sent another email and a letter to Hamilton, asking the agency to “immediately lift the hold” that the SBA had placed on a second PPP loan for one of the 14 affiliates, specifically Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood.

In April this year, Senator Joni Ernst’s investigation revealed that even after the SBA determined the Planned Parenthood affiliates were ineligible to receive further PPP loans (they were also ineligible for the first round), they still received a second round of loans later in 2021 during the Biden Administration. In fact, the SBA was apparently using the codeword “Benghazi” to hide discussions and plans to give the second round of roughly $90 million of PPP loans.

But why did the SBA do this? Was it a sudden reversal from career staff at the agency, or was it directed by the Biden White House? Unsurprisingly, it appears that Planned Parenthood’s legal team had at least a part in pressuring the administration to reverse the earlier ruling and issue the second round of loans.

This timeline strongly indicates that after the alleged meeting and communication, SBA suddenly reversed course and began to use the Benghazi codeword to hide their scheming to give yet more PPP loans out to the Planned Parenthood affiliates.

Roderick Law, spokesman for FGI, issued the following statement:

“The COVID-19 pandemic caused financial hardships for many small businesses, and the PPP loans were intended for those who qualified and truly needed them. However, Planned Parenthood neither qualified nor truly needed them. Yet the Biden administration ignored the law and still gave out the checks. Politicizing the financial lifelines of contrary to the program’s rules to aid the Biden administration’s pro-abortion allies was not a sign of a functional government.”

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