{"id":1516206,"date":"2022-06-15T06:19:25","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T10:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1516206"},"modified":"2022-06-15T06:19:34","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T10:19:34","slug":"what-a-coincidence-biden-admin-linked-special-interests-got-more-ppp-loan-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/what-a-coincidence-biden-admin-linked-special-interests-got-more-ppp-loan-forgiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"What a Coincidence:  Biden Admin-linked Special Interests Got More PPP Loan Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhat-a-coincidence-biden-admin-linked-special-interests-got-more-ppp-loan-forgiveness%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1516206&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">A report released Tuesday by the Functional Government Initiative (FGI) suggests that Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) recipients with ties to Biden administration personnel received loan forgiveness at a higher rate than the general population.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/functionalgovernment.org\/about-us\/\">FGI<\/a>, a new research organization dedicated to \u201cimproving the American public\u2019s awareness about the officials, decisions, and priorities of their government,\u201d compiled a database on loan forgiveness using the government\u2019s own data.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>In the report, FGI summarizes its conclusions:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The findings show more than $272 million was given to former employers and clients of at least 197 political appointees (spanning 33% of Cabinet officials). Many of these entities have substantial influence in the current Administration. More than 95 percent of these loans were either fully or partially forgiven, significantly higher than the 80 percent average rate of forgiveness across the program. To date, nearly $222 million in PPP loans were forgiven, with more than $1.8 million paid in excess fees.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The level of high-profile officials associated with entities receiving the COVID relief funds aimed at small businesses is quite significant. At least eight current Cabinet Secretaries, representing one-third of President Biden\u2019s Cabinet, have former employers or clients that sought and received PPP loans. Many of those loans were ultimately forgiven in total or in part.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The report does not directly allege that specific government officials intervened directly to help firms or organizations connected to them. However, it notes a pattern, and lists several high-ranking officials \u2014 including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm \u2014 as among those linked to recipients of PPP loan forgiveness.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the recipient organizations are involved in left-wing political advocacy. The FGI notes that fraud within the PPP program was widespread overall, as the urgency of the pandemic led to weak oversight of applicants for the emergency loans.<\/p>\n<p><em>Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of <\/em>Breitbart News Sunday<em> on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Neither-Free-nor-Fair-Presidential-ebook\/dp\/B08PNN54BB\">Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election<\/a>. His recent book, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.centerstreet.com\/titles\/joel-b-pollak\/red-november\/9781546099840\/\">RED NOVEMBER<\/a><em>, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at <a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joelpollak\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">@joelpollak<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A report released Tuesday by the Functional Government Initiative (FGI) suggests that Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) recipients with ties to Biden administration personnel received loan forgiveness at a higher rate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1516206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1516206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1516206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1516206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1516206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}