Chairman Van Duyne Demands Accountability from Small Businesses Administration After Fraudsters Stole $85 Billion

Today, Small Business Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations Chairman Beth Van Duyne (TX-24) issued the following statement after penning a letter to Small Business Administrator Isabella Guzman demanding accountability for American taxpayers and answers on the SBA’s progress on recovering stolen pandemic relief funds.

“As the Small Business Administration (SBA) doled out an unprecedented amount of relief money, the agency refused to implement common-sense guardrails to protect American taxpayers,” said Rep. Van Duyne. “This ineptitude allowed criminals to steal as much as $85 billion in the form of potentially fraudulent loans. Even worse, the SBA does not seem to care about recouping these funds – by deciding not to collect on PPP and EIDL loans below a threshold, they’ve chosen to give a free pass to fraudsters. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations, I am working to claw back as much of the stolen funds as possible and prevent another theft of taxpayer dollars.”

Key excerpts from the letter:

During the hearing, you also stated that the SBA has successfully clawed back about $29 billion of the $82.7 billion in potential fraud flagged by the SBA, but were unable to share specifically where that money went. It is imperative that we understand where these funds went and how the SBA is working to prevent future fraud. We therefore request the following documents and information, covering the time period March 27, 2020 to the present, as soon as possible but no later than May 3, 2023:

1. A list of all potentially fraudulent loans in both PPP and COVID EIDL and the date each loan was disbursed.
2. All “indicators” used by the SBA to determine whether a loan was fraudulent.
3. What actions the SBA has taken to claw back the fraudulently obtained funds and what tools are available to the SBA to get these taxpayer fund returned.
4. A full accounting of all loans comprising the reported $29 billion in fraudulent loans the SBA clawed back.
5. List of the SBA’s Fraud Risk Management Board members, including the program manager, and a status update on their work.