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WASHINGTON, D.C., August 12, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia is leading Republican lawmakers in seeking answers from the federal government on two high-profile scandals of the abortion industry: Planned Parenthood’s sale of organs from aborted babies, and its more recent collection of millions of dollars meant for emergency relief to small businesses.
Last month, the U.S. Treasury Department and Small Business Administration (SBA) revealed that the federal Paycheck Protection Program, (PPP), created by the $2 trillion CARES Act legislation enacted this spring, had given six-figure or higher loans to no less than 43 Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country. Taken together, Planned Parenthood affiliates received somewhere between $65.8 million and $135 million from PPP.
The PPP has already notified the improper recipients in the abortion industry and elsewhere that they need to return the money, and now a group of 29 Republican senators wants to know how the money went out in the first place.
“Statements made by Planned Parenthood suggest that the submissions were done with prior knowledge that the organizations were not eligible for the PPP loans,” reads the first letter, dated August 6 and addressed to Brian Miller, Treasury’s Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery. “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.”
The second letter, signed by 28 Republicans and addressed to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray, requests an update on any federal investigation of Planned Parenthood over the notorious baby-parts scandal first exposed in 2015.
That year, undercover journalists with the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) caught numerous abortion industry figures on video discussing their fetal organ harvesting practices, in the process seemingly admitting to several federal crimes related to profiting off human tissue and altering abortion procedures for reasons other than the mother’s health.
“We urge you to investigate not only the extent to which Planned Parenthood was involved in the sale of fetal tissue, but also the disturbing descriptions by Planned Parenthood workers of infants born alive who were left to die or killed through organ harvesting,” the letter says.
Interest in the scandal reignited in June 2020 when CMP released footage from the sworn testimony of officials from the original investigation. In that footage, they admit that they were aware of babies having been born alive, and suggested that they were murdered soon after.
CMP’s original bombshell exposé of Planned Parenthood occurred late into former President Barack Obama’s second term, so naturally the abortion giant didn’t have to worry about a federal investigation. Pro-lifers were hopeful things would change when President Donald Trump took over, and late in 2017 the Trump administration requested documents from the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s review of the case.
No charges were ever brought, however, nor has the administration updated the public on any follow-up actions.
Loeffler’s letter follows a similar request made last year, when 67 members of Congress wrote a letter to Barr and Wray seeking an update on the investigation, including why no actions have been taken yet. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department has updated the public on the state of the investigation since.