ATLANTA — U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R - Ga.) is spearheading a charge among Republican senators seeking an investigation into Planned Parenthood affiliates receiving PPP loans.
The Georgia senator said on Twitter that she'd led her GOP colleagues in requesting the Treasury and Justice departments to investigate Planned Parenthood's "flagrant disregard for the law."
She shared an article from the conservative news site Town Hall which detailed the letter.
It asks that the Treasury Department's special inspector general overseeing relief programs tied to the CARES Act, Brian Miller, "review the loans made to at least 43 Planned Parenthood affiliates."
The loans to the women's health and advocacy nonprofit's affiliates have been scrutinized by GOP lawmakers.
Under the terms of the PPP loan program, which was intended to help small businesses make it through the worst of the shutdowns over COVID-19, nonprofits were eligible for loans if they had 500 or fewer full-time and part-time employees and they were in operation before Feb. 15, 2020.
Individual Planned Parenthood affiliates operate as their own individual nonprofit agencies, a distinction that allowed many to obtain PPP loans.
Conservatives and at least officials with one federal agency, the Small Business Administration, have contended that it is not enough of a distinction.
"We ask that you investigate how these affiliates were able to obtain PPP loans despite their ineligibility under the Small Business Administration's (SBA) affiliation rules, whether any Planned Parenthood affiliates knowingly provided false information in their PPP loan applications, and to what extent the parent organization, Planned Parenthood for America (PPFA), was involved in the application process for said loans," Sen. Loeffler's letter said, according to the Town Hall article.
The Small Business Administration, when it sought the return of loans made to Planned Parenthood affiliates, asserted the national organization "is known to have and exercise control over its local affiliates."
Planned Parenthood has countered that its chapters have management autonomy and must collectively approve the group's larger bylaws.
"Just like other nonprofits and health care providers, this pandemic has had a significant impact on Planned Parenthood health centers’ ability to provide care," Jacqueline Ayers, a Planned Parenthood official, told NBC News in July. "Paycheck Protection Program loans have ensured health centers can retain staff and continue to provide patients with essential, time-sensitive sexual and reproductive health care during this crisis."
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