When the Trump administration began implementing a trillion-dollar program to rescue struggling employers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a central concern was that the president would use the program to benefit his friends and allies.
Turns out, Trump’s friends weren’t the ones who caught so much windfall, but the well-to-do and well-connected in Washington, DC overall. Among the entities that cashed six to seven-figure checks from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program in recent months was a tax liability advocacy organization led by anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, a consulting firm. high-powered executive led by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the nonprofit organization led by former Trump campaign official David Bossie and a political strategy firm linked to two former Obama White House alumni who have turned the anti-Trump podcast into a lucrative business.
Businesses associated with the President’s son-in-law and members of Congress obtained funds from taxpayers. Like the elite schools in the DC area where both President Trump and President Obama enrolled their children: The St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, where Barron Trump is a student, earned between $ 2 million and $ 5 million, and the Sidwell Friends School, where both Obama children graduated. high school, earned between $ 5 million and $ 10 million.
On Monday, the Treasury Department finally released the names of everyone who received a loan of more than $ 150,000 through the PPP. The disclosure does not cover loans below that amount, nor does it specify the exact amount each organization received. In the months before the loan was released on Monday, certain companies and entities, perceiving the possibility of negative publicity, announced that they had received the loans and, in most cases, were paying them back. Media company Axios, for example, proactively announced that it had applied for and received a PPP loan, and then said it was returning those funds after receiving criticism.
Other outlets had no such problems. Records show that between $ 350,000 and $ 1 million went to Observer Holdings LLC, the parent entity of Observer Media, the publishing company that previously belonged to White House chief adviser Jared Kushner. Kushner resigned from the news organization before moving to Washington, DC in 2017, but has remained in the family: Joseph Meyer, married to Kushner’s sister Nicole, lists him among the properties of his investment firm Observer Capital. Federal aid kept 41 jobs, according to the SBA.
The Observer was not the only Kushner family business to take advantage of the PPP program. Two of New Jersey’s family hotels also charged. SBA materials show that $ 1 million to $ 2 million in assistance went to Princeton Forrestal LLC, disclosed in the records of the Security and Exchange Commission, 40 percent owned by the mother, the brother of the former developer. and sister. Esplanade Livingston LLC, which owns the land on which the company’s Westminster Hotel is located, received another $ 350,000 to $ 1 million. Mortgage documents filed in Essex County, New Jersey show that Esplanade Livingston LLC is controlled by CK Livingston LLC, a company bearing the initials of Jared Kushner’s father, Charles, and which the former revealed in 2017 as a source of hotel personal income.
Meanwhile, the conservative online media outlet founded by Trump’s confidant and Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson, the Daily Caller, received as much as $ 1 million. Carlson sold his stake in the company on June 10. And Newsmax, the conservative television network and website owned by another presidential confidant, Christopher Ruddy, got a loan of $ 2 million to $ 5 million.
Collectively, the massive data dump makes it clear that while small businesses across the country may have had difficulty navigating the federal government loan process, little difficulty was encountered among those in the capital of the nation and its surroundings.
At some level it is to be expected; Washington is a company city, whose currency may be cash but also connections. As city businesses sought assistance through the program, they would likely include advocacy groups, lobbyists, and public affairs stores, and even nonprofits affiliated with the legislators themselves.
But unlike other regions of the country, companies in Washington are in a unique position to affect and extract money from programs designed to benefit American companies in general, since they have personnel close to those in power.
Albright Stonebridge Group, the Albright firm that declares itself “the leading global strategy and trade diplomacy firm,” took a loan totaling between $ 2 and $ 5 million. Rokk Solutions, a public affairs firm that boasts of its Fortune 100 client list, foreign governments, and trade associations, raised between $ 150,000 and $ 350,000 in PPP funds. Precision Strategies, a company founded by prominent alumni of the Obama campaign, raised between $ 1 million and $ 2 million. Fenway Strategies, a company founded by Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor, former fellows of the Obama administration, earned between $ 150,000 and $ 350,000 (Vietor and Favreau both have company permits while running their new podcasting and media company, Crooked Media ). Beacon Global Strategies, a firm that considers former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and former Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Morell as “top advisers,” raised between $ 350,000 and $ 1 million.
Wiley Rein, the DC law firm and lobbying firm that represented clients like AT&T, Fox Corporation, Verizon and the steel giant Nucor to the federal government last year, received a loan of between $ 5 million and $ 10 million. .
It is difficult to assess the financial health of many of those companies. However, for some PPP recipients, public records show significant income from adjacent political or political businesses before obtaining federal assistance. Republican political consultancy FP1 Strategies, for example, reported receiving more than $ 7 million since last year from federal political committees alone. FP1 obtained a PPP loan valued between $ 1 million and $ 2 million. America Rising Corporation, a Republican opposition research firm, has received more than $ 3.5 million from federal political committees since last year. That company obtained a loan valued between $ 350,000 and $ 1 million.
Some other notable campaign sellers on both sides of the political aisle also managed to obtain PPP loans. Jamestown Associates, a Republican advertising buying firm working for the Trump campaign, among other notable clients, received between $ 350,000 and $ 1 million. TMA Direct, a Republican fundraising firm led by Finance Committee Co-Chairman Trump Victory, raised between $ 150,000 and $ 350,000. Sage Media Planning and Placement, a media buyer working with Democratic campaigns, got a loan in the same dollar range.
The PPP was launched as a lifeline for small businesses burdened by the economic shutdown caused by the COVID pandemic. And, to some extent, economists say it has worked: keeping those companies afloat as consumer spending and other sources of income accumulate. However, the program had a shaky launch, and many business owners said they found the application process cumbersome. It also faced criticism for launching proverbial lifelines at major companies (often hotels, restaurants, and casinos) that used their individual branches to meet standards to qualify for loans.
With $ 130 billion spent on the program not spent, and the application deadline has been extended to August 8, the program no longer bears much criticism for prioritizing large fish over smaller fish. But its list of recipients is likely to raise doubts, especially for its inclusion of conservative organizations that have argued against government intervention in the private sector.
A wing of Norquist Americans for tax reform, for example, received a loan worth between $ 150,000 and $ 350,000. Norquist, a famous figure in Beltway for getting Republican lawmakers to routinely promise not to raise taxes, has denounced the fiscal scale of the government’s response efforts against the coronavirus. He signed a recent letter to Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging them to “stop spending.”
“The crowd inside the ring road falsely calls these trillions of dollars a ‘stimulus’ for the economy,” the letter said. “But the government can only give money to some people, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman taught all of us many years ago, taking money from others.”
A statement from Americans for Tax Reform stated that its foundation is a “legally and financially separate” organization. “She applied for and received a loan, and as a consequence has been able to support her employees without firing anyone. ATRF does not participate in lobbying, “the statement said, while noting that ATR” never opposed “the enactment of the PPP.
Some entities connected to Congress, who authored and approved the PPP program, also benefited from it, including, apparently, the legislators themselves. Companies owned by Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) received up to $ 800,000 in loans, according to the new disclosure, and four other members of Congress had already obtained PPP loans through their business ventures. Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA), in his most recent financial disclosure presentation, reported owning between $ 50,000 and $ 100,000 in equity at a California warehouse, Phase 2 Cellars. That winery received a PPP loan worth between $ 1 million and $ 2 million.
And companies associated with family members of two candidates in one of the country’s top-tier Senate races also stood up to benefit of PPP funds. The law firm of Maine Democratic nominee Sara Gideon’s husband raised PPP funds, while a business owned by the brothers of Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), architect of the program, was approved for PPP relief,although they later returned the funds. In recent months, Gideon has criticized Collins’ imprint on the small business bailout initiative, saying “special interests” were privileged over small businesses to receive federal cash.
Several of the nonprofit organizations associated with certain parliamentary assemblies, such as the black and Hispanic parliamentary assemblies, received PPP loans, as did the foundation linked to the influential congressmen’s assembly of athletes.
The Claremont Institute, a group of California experts, made between $ 350,000 and $ 1 million, according to records. The group has sown some top-level talent in the Trump administration, including Michael Pack, the newly installed head of the federal government’s broadcast agency, and Michael Anton, a former spokesman for the Trump National Security Council, and may have done more than any other group to build A philosophical case for Trump’s conservatism.
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