After news broke that the Planned Parenthood abortion business fraudulently received $80 million in funds meant to help small businesses deal with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, the Trump administration has wasted no time in acting.
As LifeNews.com reported, Planned Parenthood received $80 million in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program meant for small businesses. That is despite the fact that the rules and regulations associated with the program specifically prohibited affiliates of larger organizations with more than 500 employees from applying. That covers Planned Parenthood as Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PFFA) alone has had more than 600 employees.
Some 37 Planned Parenthood affiliates received the funds from the Paycheck Protection Program and Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties in California received the largest loan of $7.5 million, and that affiliate was caught selling the body parts of aborted babies.
Now, the Trump administration is demanding Planned Parenthood return the funds and it may file criminal charges against employees of the abortion giant if they lied on the applications for funding:
The Small Business Administration (SBA) is reaching out to each involved Planned Parenthood affiliate explaining that affiliates of larger organizations with more than 500 employees aren’t eligible for PPP distributions, Fox News is told.
A Planned Parenthood affiliate in Metropolitan Washington (PPMW), for example, will receive a letter stating that although self-certified that it was eligible for a $1,328,000 PPP loan in accordance with the SBA’s affiliation rules, it will need to return the money.
The SBA warned more “severe penalties” were possible, beyond mandatory repayment. In particular, incorrect or false eligibility certifications by PPP recipients could result in criminal or civil sanctions if the SBA determined borrowers made knowingly false statements, the SBA letter read.
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The letter explained that PPFA affiliates clearly were covered by the PPP affiliate rules. “PPFA’s bylaws, a version of which is publicly available, reveal that becoming a PPFA affiliate requires a certification by the PPFA board,” the document continued. “Once certified, “[e]ach Affiliate shall be governed by written bylaws, which conform to PPFA policies.”
Leading senators have already called for securing the return of the taxpayer money and prosecuting any possible fraud.
Senator Ben Sasse, the author of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act and a Nebraska Republican, was disgusted by the news.
“Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, tried to defraud taxpayers during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The Paycheck Protection Program is supposed to be a lifeline for small businesses, not a slush fund for Big Abortion. The administration needs to reclaim that money and fire the bureaucrats who signed off on this scam,” he told LifeNews.
Sen. Marco Rubio, chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, told Fox News Planned Parenthood violate the PPP rules.
“There is no ambiguity in the legislation that passed or public record around its passage that organizations such as Planned Parenthood, whose parent organization has close to half a billion dollars in assets, is not eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program. Those funds must be returned immediately. Furthermore, the SBA should open an investigation into how these loans were made in clear violation of the applicable affiliation rules and if Planned Parenthood, the banks, or staff at the SBA knowingly violated the law, all appropriate legal options should be pursued,” he said.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) tweeted, “The money needs to be recovered and if anybody knowingly falsified applications, they need to be prosecuted.”
