Biden Officials Used Code Word 'Benghazi' to Conceal Discussion of Planned Parenthood Loans

Senator Joni Ernst has asked the Department of Justice to investigate the Biden administration for allegedly mislabeling electronic communications about Covid-era loans to Planned Parenthood by using the code word “Benghazi” to avoid detection in Freedom of Information Act requests and other forms of record reviews.

Ernst’s letter to the Department of Justice cites internal communications in which Biden officials appear to use the term “Benghazi” — well-known to Americans as the site of a 2012 terror attack on a U.S. compound that resulted in the deaths of four Americans — to refer to Covid-relief loans that were provided to Planned Parenthood, drawing the ire of Republicans who argued the organization was ineligible to receive the loans.

“Recipients and respondents in the [Small Business Administration] 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, who chairs the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said in a letter sent to the Department of Justice on Monday.

“We now know that after the SBA Biden officials met, planned and strategized (over ‘Benghazi’), keeping the White House involved, approximately $90 million in Planned Parenthood SBA [Paycheck Protection Program] loans and interest on the loans were forgiven by the Biden administration,” Ernst said.

The relevant communications begin on April 30, 2021 — after SBA employees in the Biden administration had participated in hearings and received several stern letters from members of Congress objecting to the loans.

Peggy Hamilton — then general counsel of the SBA — wrote “Benghazi (PPP/PPH) Decisions” in the subject line of one email. According to Ernst’s letter, this email appears to have begun a months-long email chain about the Planned Parenthood SBA loans and the entity’s loan forgiveness requests.

In another email, Hamilton wrote to SBA chief of staff Antwaun Griffin spelling out what she meant when she used the term “Benghazi” in a previous email: “Can I schedule a meeting so we can decision [sic] Benghazi (Planned Parenthood)?” Griffin responded, “Yes, let’s talk Benghazi.”

The letter further alleges that Isabel Guzman, then the head of the SBA, organized a virtual meeting from her work email under the subject line “Benghazi (PPP/PPH) Decisions.” The letter suggests that the abbreviation “PPH” is unclear and used only by some SBA employees, possibly as an attempt to “to intentionally conceal federal records from searches by avoiding Planned Parenthood’s common abbreviation.”

Ernst has asked the Department of Justice to investigate the officials for attempts to conceal a federal record, which is punishable by up to three years in prison.

During President Trump’s first term, the Small Business Administration sent more than $80 million in Covid-era loans reserved for small businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program to Planned Parenthood and dozens of subsidiaries that had “self-certified” as eligible.

A letter signed by more than 20 senators was sent to then–Attorney General William Barr in May 2020 urging the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the Planned Parenthood locations that received the pandemic-relief loans. The letter argued that Planned Parenthood and its subsidiaries applied for these loans despite knowing they were ineligible.

“The Paycheck Protection Program established by the CARES Act was designed by Congress to help struggling small businesses and nonprofit organizations by giving them access to low-cost loans for expenses like keeping their employees on payroll during this pandemic,” said the letter. “It was not designed to give government funds to politicized, partisan abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.”

The letter to the attorney general noted that Planned Parenthood had publicly suggested it would not qualify for pandemic-relief loans from the SBA.

“The bill gives the Small Business Administration broad discretion to exclude Planned Parenthood affiliates and other non-profits serving people with low incomes and deny them benefits under the new small business loan program,” said the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in March 2020. “In addition, the bill attaches a new unnecessary Hyde Amendment provision, a harmful policy that prevents people with low incomes from accessing safe and legal abortion coverage, to a state stabilization fund for providing coronavirus relief.”

Additionally, more than 100 members of Congress sent a letter to the Small Business Administration in 2020 requesting an investigation into the Planned Parenthood subsidiaries that received Covid-relief loans. The letter argued that the local Planned Parenthoods are “affiliates” incorporated within the national Planned Parenthood and therefore do not qualify as a “small business” under SBA guidelines, thus they were ineligible for the loans.

In May 2020, the Small Business Administration contacted some Planned Parenthood arms to say they were ineligible for the loans due to the “affiliation” guidelines. The SBA requested additional paperwork and raised the possibility of “potential repayment” for the improperly awarded funds.

The SBA announced this month that it has referred 562,000 suspected fraudulent loans to the U.S. Department of Treasury for collection. These loans, which were previously identified as potentially fraudulent under the Biden Administration but never referred to the Treasury or Department of Justice, amount to roughly $22 billion and were granted through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Covid Economic Injury Disaster initiatives.

The Small Business Administration opened an investigation this January into 38 affiliates of Planned Parenthood, asking them each to supply evidence that they were eligible to receive loans through the Paycheck Protection Program. According to the SBA, the investigation aimed to uncover whether the Planned Parenthood affiliates had misrepresented their business size or relationship with the national organization in order to qualify for the Paycheck Protection Program.

“Each Planned Parenthood affiliate certified that they were an independent qualified entity with fewer than 500 employees,” the SBA said in a press release this January. “However, during the first Trump Administration in 2020, the SBA preliminarily concluded that none of them were eligible for PPP due to numerous indicators of PPFA’s control over them and their services — including requirements to perform on-site abortions — in violation of SBA’s affiliation standards.”