EXCLUSIVE: The House Small Business Committee will ask Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler for Biden-era data it says the previous administration consistently “stonewalled” throughout a probe into alleged swing-state electioneering.
Chairman Roger Williams, R-Texas, and the panel have been pressing the SBA since they first uncovered cooperation between the agency and the state of Michigan under former President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14019: Promoting Access to Voting.
The committee prefaced its letter by saying Williams is pleased to hear Loeffler committed to rescinding the formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) forged with the Great Lakes State – but went on to ask for detailed documentation of the SBA’s work before she was confirmed.
The committee alleged the former SBA leadership used the MOU to involve themselves in partisan voter registration efforts in target precincts like Saginaw and Detroit, rather than simply aiding voters across the board.
LAWMAKERS SLAM SBA ‘STONEWALLING’ OVER MICHIGAN VOTER MEMO AS ELECTIONEERING CLAIMS SURFACE
In the heat of the conflict between the Biden SBA and the Small Business Committee, Williams filed what he told Fox News Digital was a “rare” subpoena for information from the SBA.
The government watchdog Oversight Project, of the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, also launched a separate lawsuit last year in regard to the alleged electioneering behavior.
A year-end report first obtained by Fox News Digital, found Biden’s executive order to be an “improper use of executive authority” and that SBA actions in accordance with it thereby “pose unnecessary risks to the integrity of U.S. elections.”
“Either intentionally or negligently, the SBA has failed to refute concerns of this MOU’s partisan nature,” the report added.
In that effect, Williams is now asking Loeffler for the travel schedules of Biden-era officials, communications including interoffice instant-messenger among SBA personnel in regard to Biden’s order, and all communications with the state of Michigan.
The panel is also asking for an explicitly unredacted copy of implementation plans in regard to the MOU, as well as any evidence “sufficient to show whether the SBA engaged in any activity relating to voter access or voter registration before the MOU’s March 19, 2024 announcement.”
HOUSE COMMITTEE DEMANDS BIDEN AGENCY REVEAL STAFF TRAVEL HISTORIES AMID ELECTIONEERING CLAIMS
The committee also continues to seek travel schedules and related documents for a dozen SBA staff members, including Isabel Casillas Guzman, Dilawar Syed, Arthur Plews and Jennifer Kim.
Representatives for the Biden-era SBA repeatedly denied any “stonewalling.”
In a statement on its work with SBA, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said she was proud to work with the agency “for this first-in-the-nation effort connecting Michigan’s small business community with the tools and information they need to play an even greater active role in our democracy.”
“For nearly two years, the SBA has cooperated with the committee’s inquiry, testifying at multiple hearings, providing the committee staff with briefings, making agency officials available for transcribed interviews, and producing thousands of pages of documents responsive to their inquiry,” a spokesperson said, calling the allegations “baseless.”
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Fox News Digital reached out to committee ranking member Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., for comment on Wednesday’s letter as well.
Previously, Velazquez said that until the current controversy, the committee had long “prided itself in bipartisan cooperation to help American entrepreneurs.”
“Unfortunately, with [these] subpoenas, Republicans have rejected these principles to pursue a partisan inquiry,” Velazquez said at the time.
In December, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., praised the work of the committee and its interim report, saying it rightly exposed “not only the improper use of executive authority but also significant concerns about actions taken by an agency that may jeopardize the integrity of U.S. elections.”
