Biden Admin’s Code Word to Hide PPP Loans to Planned Parenthood Revealed
A Republican senator is demanding federal prosecutors open a criminal investigation after uncovering evidence that Biden administration officials may have systematically broken the law to funnel and forgive tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who chairs the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, went public Monday with findings that officials inside the Small Business Administration distributed and later erased Paycheck Protection Program debt owed by Planned Parenthood — an organization the agency had already formally declared ineligible to receive those funds, according to Luke Rosiak from Daily Wire.
The senator’s findings center on a discovery buried inside internal government communications: SBA officials allegedly replaced every written reference to Planned Parenthood with the word “Benghazi” — the name of the Libyan city where four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador, lost their lives in a 2012 terrorist attack.
The substitution was not accidental. According to Ernst, the codeword functioned as a deliberate shield against congressional oversight and Freedom of Information Act requests. Any records search using “Planned Parenthood” as a search term would have returned nothing.
The paper trail leads directly to Peggy Hamilton, who served as the SBA’s top attorney under the Biden administration. In April 2021, Hamilton circulated an email to agency leadership carrying the subject line “Benghazi (PPP/PPH) Decisions.”
The message directed staff to evaluate nonprofit loan applicants for eligibility and specifically instructed them to keep the White House informed as determinations were reached.
Hamilton’s own direct messages left little room for interpretation. “Can I schedule a meeting so we can decision Benghazi (Planned Parenthood)?” she wrote to a colleague. The response: “Yes, let’s talk Benghazi.”
Ernst addressed Hamilton’s conduct directly in her letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “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.
The origins of the controversy stretch back to the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the SBA under the first Trump administration disbursed more than $80 million in PPP loans to Planned Parenthood and its affiliates after the organization self-certified its own eligibility.
Congressional Republicans objected immediately, noting that Planned Parenthood’s workforce far exceeded the 500-employee threshold required for small business classification under the CARES Act.
The SBA later sent formal letters to the organization declaring it ineligible and demanding repayment. Ernst has stated that those funds were never returned.
When the Biden administration took office, Planned Parenthood affiliates received additional loan payments. Republicans escalated their demands for answers in April 2021, pressing the agency to explain what steps it had taken following the ineligibility determination.
Instead of answering, agency officials allegedly doubled down on concealment. SBA officials continued using the “Benghazi” codeword throughout the summer of 2021, even as congressional pressure mounted and a formal hearing took place.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) confronted SBA Administrator Isabella Guzman directly at a May 2021 hearing, citing $17 million in PPP funds that reached Planned Parenthood after the ineligibility ruling.
“You believe you are above the law. … It looks like you are specifically hiding this information from us,” Paul told Guzman during the proceeding.
Two days after that hearing, officials were back in the “Benghazi” email chain, this time to arrange a meeting and “discuss forgiveness.”
The following month, Guzman herself scheduled a Microsoft Teams meeting under the title “Benghazi (PPP/PPH) Decision,” according to internal records surfaced by the investigation.
Ernst noted that “PPH” bears no resemblance to any recognized abbreviation for Planned Parenthood, which is sometimes shortened to PPFA — Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
The invented acronym, like the Benghazi label, would have ensured the meetings disappeared from any standard records search.
By the time the Biden administration concluded, approximately $90 million in PPP loans and accumulated interest owed by Planned Parenthood had been forgiven.
Ernst stated the White House was kept informed throughout the process, raising the possibility that individuals currently serving in the executive branch may be implicated.
She has formally called for investigation under 18 U.S.C. §2017, a federal statute that carries a prison sentence of up to three years for anyone convicted of concealing government records.
Ernst’s referral to the Justice Department arrives alongside a separate DOJ report released earlier this month concluding that the Biden Justice Department coordinated with abortion organizations, including Planned Parenthood, to pursue FACE Act prosecutions against pro-life activists.
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