COVID-19 Reduction & Planned Parenthood: Senators Urge Action In opposition to Abortion Group for Financial loan Fraud

On Thursday, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton led extra than two dozen Republican senators in sending a letter to the Smaller Organization Administration (SBA), urging its officials to keep Prepared Parenthood accountable for acquiring improperly received COVID-19 aid financial loans very last spring.

In May well 2020, the SBA admitted that dozens of Planned Parenthood affiliates experienced improperly utilized for and received a complete of about $80 million in forgivable financial loans from the Paycheck Defense Method (PPP), which Congress designed in the CARES Act for compact-business aid.

After intensive debate over the plan and specially over no matter whether it may extend to abortion suppliers, Congress had chosen explicitly to exclude nonprofit corporations set up as affiliate marketers — massive nonprofits this sort of as Prepared Parenthood — from implementing for PPP funding.

Nonetheless, a quantity of Prepared Parenthood affiliate marketers evidently utilized for and obtained that compact-business aid in any case, in excess of and in opposition to the specific provisions in the CARES Act. Soon soon after that news broke very last May possibly, Cotton led his colleagues in writing to the Division of Justice, inquiring that the attorney basic examine individuals affiliate marketers for their fraudulent self-certification of eligibility for the PPP.

Extra than 50 percent a year later on, no new details has been produced, and as far as we know, those Prepared Parenthood affiliate marketers have not returned the loans they received.

This new letter from Cotton and 30 Senate Republicans urges the SBA to “take safety measures so that affiliate marketers of Prepared Parenthood, the major and most notorious abortion company, do not receive loans beneath the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)” yet again this 12 months.

Beneath the new coronavirus-relief offer that Congress handed in December, candidates to the PPP for a second round of compact-company loans are not eligible if they use additional than 300 people. Planned Parenthood, in the meantime, has about about 16,000 staff, which exceeded each past year’s PPP cap of 500 and this year’s cap of 300.

“Planned Parenthood affiliates hence are ineligible to obtain PPP loans, as component of an affiliated group that employs significantly far more people than the range permitted for an initial or 2nd-attract PPP personal loan,” the senators create.

The letter reiterates the senators’ phone for the SBA to go after even more motion towards Planned Parenthood for the financial loan fraud it appears to have fully commited past 12 months. “Members of this body earlier have urged you to investigate these bogus certifications of eligibility, get better the extra than $80 million in cash, and seek acceptable penalties versus Planned Parenthood affiliate marketers that broke the law,” it proceeds. The senators persuade the SBA to advise collaborating lenders that Planned Parenthood is ineligible for PPP loans and refer any Prepared Parenthood affiliate that applies for a mortgage to the Justice Department for prosecution.

Lastly, the senators point out that Planned Parenthood executives were properly conscious that federal law prohibited the group’s affiliates from professing smaller-enterprise loans less than the PPP.

The letter is accurate. Last May, immediately after news of its loan fraud grew to become public, Prepared Parenthood asserted on Twitter that its affiliates had fulfilled the eligibility principles set up by Congress for the small-organization financial loans. In truth, Prepared Parenthood alone already had admitted that it was not qualified for the loans. After Congress passed the CARES Act, Planned Parenthood Motion Fund issued a statement condemning the legislation for excluding the firm from its funding: “The invoice presents the Tiny Company Administration wide discretion to exclude Prepared Parenthood affiliates and other non-earnings serving individuals with lower incomes and deny them advantages under the new modest company bank loan method.”

The GOP senators are proper, then, to refer to Prepared Parenthood’s personal loan apps as “naked tries to defraud the United States authorities.” This time about, the SBA should really be hyper-conscious of the abortion group’s willingness to dedicate fraud and refuse to permit its affiliates to declare funding intended for compact firms in need.