"You Are In Defiance Of Congress": Rand Paul Grills SBA Administrator About Planned Parenthood

advanced program senator paul administrator guzman i've sent two letters to you signed by 50 of the committee members requesting specific information regarding ppp loans to planned parenthood affiliates uh we have not gotten a response so far how many first-draw pp loan ppp loans have been approved to planned parenthood affiliates so specifically on on specific borrowers the sba has not commented on specific borrowers i'm asking you i'm in charge of oversight over your trillion dollar agency and i'm asking you how many have been approved we don't publicly uh release that information and once you are in defiance of congress you will do what you want not what congress wants we have provided you a full listing that you have not provided us with any listing of planned parenthood affiliates who've received money this is an ongoing problem the previous administration said it was unlawful this is a big deal the previous administration said it was unlawful and told them to return the money your administration is now giving them money this is a legal question this is a big deal this isn't something you come to congress and just say i'm not going to answer the questions not at all while i can't discuss specific borrower information no you you know what no one is stopping you from discussing this in your written testimony you discussed an individual recipient of money through the program so you are willing to talk about individual recipients you're just not willing to talk about planned parenthood but there is a legal question here we want to know how many first draw loans were given we want to know how many second draw loans we want to know since patrick kelly your associate came here and told us that the affiliate rule has not been reversed the affiliate rule predated as far as i'm concerned the trump administration it goes back decades because it was done to protect small businesses so small business programs were supposed to go to small businesses not big businesses so planned parenthood has 16 000 employees the previous administration determined that they're a big business and yet you continue to give them money and you won't tell us how much you're giving you won't tell us if you've reversed your policy have you reversed the long-standing affiliate policy that has been part of the small business administration for decades no we have not and if i may what we did provide to you is the full listing of all of the ppp loans so it wasn't we don't have a specific ppp file but we did provide to your staff the full listing so that you could look at all of that information including any planned parenthood um you know specifically on the affiliation rule nothing has changed with that regard however what i would say is that um you know specifically the on affiliation what applies here is management apparently the data you sent us that was in collection was sent months ago and doesn't include the new loans so we want to know about the new loans i think we discovered the old loans and now we'd like to know about the new loans but then we have to have an answer if it's illegal according to the small business office to give money to planned parenthood how did it become legal if you haven't changed the policy so the previous administration said they are a big business they said give the money back you're giving money to the people that the small administration said it was illegal to give money to that is a conundrum that is a real problem and and if i could speak to that letter that letter was not a policy um statement it was not process in fact the letter doesn't exist in sba systems as it's not um it's not which letter which letter the the letter that you referenced before in your letters to us about this issue um specifically and so we don't have but what are you talking about the letter what letter are you talking about you're talking about the policy you're talking right which i which i would say is not a policy how people so you're saying that the previous administration when they denied funds to planned parenthood they did not refer to a policy they did not refer to the affiliate policy which is the poli you're saying the affiliate policy is not a policy the affiliation rule is a policy what they were referring to was general the affiliation rule as we shared with you in our recent letter to you and i apologize that was yesterday so i'm not sure if you've had a chance to review it but affiliation arises under certain stock um under certain circumstances some of them don't apply to non-profits in the case of ownership or board um you know excuse me stock options or relations identity of interest which is more for foundations but where this does apply is on management and that's either where there's control of the officers but you can see how common sense would dictate that you would put something forward saying that you've now reinterpreted the policy to say planned parenthood is no longer a big business but a small business because you're working in direct contradiction to the previous small business administration that said they are a big business they went through all the same rules you're listing for me and they concluded that yes planned parenthood had direct control over the affiliates that the policies and the actions were dependent on the national branch and that they did not meet the definition of a small business and so you are aware that not only is planned parenthood a politically controversial agent you know entity but it's also one that the rest of government has controls on we have put the hyde amendment in for decades to try to prevent taxpayer money from paying for abortion but now you're going around the hyde amendment giving them money but then you're also reclassifying them as in not a big business as a small business but you're not being forthright and and if i may i did not say that the i'm not judging on the policy specifically with affiliation for a specific borrower because again we do not do that i'm sharing the affiliation rule with you um for your um for your guidance however um we don't basically the borrowers attest to certain eligibility and the lenders can rely on that attestation the you know the sba doesn't directly but they were ruled illegal by the small business administration and you're reversing that policy and you're saying oh we don't ever look at this somebody else it's a self-attestation well someone determined that they were illegally getting the money and told them to get it back and now they're getting the money i don't know how that can happen without an explanation from the small business and then the s and then just to add on to that the the the point at which sba would look at that would be at the point of forgiveness and so that prior you know relationship is attestation by the borrower to the lender but that's not the way you know when uh i think uh it was patrick kelly when he testified he said you had thousands of ones that you had reviewed for honesty and whether or not they had been honest and there were lists of people that hadn't been and apparently planned parenthood was on the list they're still on the list so they're on a list of people illegally getting it the policy was send it back and now you're sending them more you can see how it doesn't make sense to us so and then you're unwilling to comment on it and you're unwilling to give us information so my conclusion is that you believe you are above the law and my only conclusion is that we still want the information we are here for oversight that our next step would be to subpoena you but that doesn't that's that's a disappointment to me because when you when when i voted for you i thought you said you would be transparent and it looks like you're specifically hiding this information from us and i just uh one other thing to note is that again as we go through forgiveness and the sba then starts to look at these loans that's when hold codes can arise as well under those circumstances you know we'd be happy to continue to work with your staff um to provide further information uh but again uh you know sba at this point in those loan processes is is obviously relying on the attestation of the borrowers as well as the land so today no planned parenthood has been forgiven no planned parenthood loan has been forgiven that's correct so see you know the information you're not willing to reveal it so you know all about their information the record should state you're unwilling to give the information to congress

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

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Keywords: rand paul, planned parenthood, sba, congress

Id: CHciCbdRBEs

Length: 8min 21sec (501 seconds)

Published: Wed May 26 2021