Bipartisan grifting

At least four members of Congress have reaped benefits in some way from the half-trillion-dollar small-business loan program they helped create.

And no one knows how many more there could be.

  Politico

No wonder Mnuchin won't release information on who got the money.

It’s a bipartisan group of lawmakers who have acknowledged close ties to companies that have received loans from the program — businesses that are either run by their families or employ their spouse as a senior executive.

Republicans on the list include Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, a wealthy businessman who owns auto dealerships, body shops and car washes, and Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, whose family owns multiple farms and equipment suppliers across the Midwest. The Democrats count Rep. Susie Lee of Nevada, whose husband is CEO of a regional casino developer, and Rep. Debbie Mucarsel Powell of Florida, whose husband is an executive at a restaurant chain that has since returned the loan.

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A spokesperson for Mucarsel Powell said her husband played no role in applying for the PPP loan and did not financially benefit from the aid; amid the recession, he took a pay cut from his employer.

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Spokespeople for Williams and Hartzler declined to say how much money was provided under the loans to the privately held companies lawmakers own. Full House Resorts, of which Lee's husband is the president and CEO, received $5.6 million, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Fiesta Restaurant Group, which employs Mucarsel Powell's husband as an executive, received $15 million before returning it in full.

So maybe we can cut Debbie a little slack.

And there are almost certainly more, according to aides and lawmakers. But only the Small Business Administration and Treasury Department have that information, and the Trump administration is refusing to provide any details.

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Williams was one of 146 Republicans to oppose Phillips’ bill to require the SBA to disclose loans over $2 million. Another one of those Republicans was Hartzler.

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Much of the scrutiny surrounding lawmakers taking PPP loans has centered on Williams, one of the wealthiest members of Congress with a net worth of over $27 million in 2018. He received a PPP loan for an undisclosed amount for his Roger Williams Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealership in Weatherford, Texas. The same dealership employs his wife, according to his most recent financial disclosure form.

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Democrats have tried to pry free the list of recipients. But their push in the House to require disclosure of at least some companies was blocked on the floor late last month by Republicans — including Williams and Hartzler, who voted against the bill. Lee and Powell joined all Democrats in supporting it.

So, a little slack for Susie Lee, too.

“This is the largest distributor of taxpayer money in human history, and we need to ensure taxpayers know where it’s going,” the author of that bill, Rep. Dean Phillips, said in an interview. The Minnesota Democrat added that his bill “was not written to expose members of Congress, because frankly I expected members of Congress to be forthright and transparent to begin with.”

Prompting raucous laughter among those in earshot, no doubt.

The program already faced intense scrutiny over charges it was helping the well-connected after reports revealed that large corporations were among the first to be awarded loans, while the smallest businesses were stuck in line.

Now it’s being dogged by growing transparency complaints, with Treasury and SBA refusing to disclose recipients after officials initially said data would become public through Freedom of Information Act requests. POLITICO has sought the information under FOIA.

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Phillips’ transparency legislation initially would have published the names of all businesses that received a loan, though he agreed to create a $2 million threshold for disclosure as part of an agreement with some of his GOP colleagues. But the bill, which won the support of 38 Republicans, fell just a handful of votes short on the floor, stunning Phillips and other Democrats who had expected it to pass under a fast-track procedure reserved for popular bills.

“To this very day, I do not quite understand what happened,” Phillips said.

Grift happened.