04/28/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 04/28/2026 19:56
WASHINGTON - After years of being stonewalled by Biden's Small Business Administration (SBA), U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) finally gained access to agency communications and uncovered a potential cover-up obscuring $90 million in taxpayer funds Biden officials gifted to Planned Parenthood.
Ernst's oversight revealed that Biden officials, seemingly at the direction of the top lawyer at the SBA, used the codeword "Benghazi" to reference internal communications about how Planned Parenthood qualified for small business COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. The use of an unrelated codeword would have effectively hidden information related to these programs from any congressional or public record requests - which, if proven, would be a violation of the Federal Records Act and a federal crime.
"What does Benghazi have to do with Planned Parenthood? It appears the Biden SBA used it as a codename to hide the $90 million in taxpayer funds they gifted to the abortion provider," said Senator Ernst. "I've already exposed the Biden administration's blatant disregard for transparency, but this potential cover-up demands answers. I'm calling for a DOJ investigation to determine if Biden officials were illegally concealing federal records over their egregious handout to Planned Parenthood."
In a new letter to the Department of Justice, Ernst demands accountability and calls for an investigation of any potential concealment of federal records.
"Recipients and respondents in the SBA email chains knew Planned Parenthood was not in or even remotely related to Benghazi, yet by continuing the email chain and scheduling meetings, it appears several Biden political appointees, and some SBA employees, were knowingly concealing or attempting to conceal their records relating to Planned Parenthood," Ernst wrote. "With the records detailed here, and many more I've obtained, perhaps now we know why the Biden administration did not want to share its Planned Parenthood records with Congress."
Background:
Senator Ernst already exposed how Planned Parenthood unlawfully received millions of dollars in funding from the PPP and had at least 34 loans forgiven by the Biden administration.
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