Sen. Joni Ernst says Biden-era officials at the Small Business Administration used the code word "Benghazi" in internal emails and meeting invitations to hide records of pandemic-era loans funneled to Planned Parenthood, loans the organization was already deemed ineligible to receive. Ernst has now asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether federal law was broken.
The Iowa Republican, who chairs the committee overseeing the SBA, laid out the allegations in a letter requesting a formal DOJ probe. At stake: roughly $90 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans and accrued interest that were quietly forgiven under the Biden administration, according to Ernst, even after the SBA itself had told Planned Parenthood affiliates they did not qualify.
The story was first reported by Daily Wire reporter Luke Rosiak and detailed in a Breitbart News report by Katherine Hamilton. If Ernst's account of the internal communications holds up, it describes a deliberate effort by senior government lawyers to evade congressional oversight, Freedom of Information Act requests, and federal records retention rules, all to shield the nation's largest abortion provider from accountability.
The paper trail, as Ernst describes it, begins during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The SBA, then under the Trump administration, sent more than $80 million in PPP loans to Planned Parenthood and its affiliates after those entities "self-certified" their eligibility. The following month, the SBA sent letters notifying the affiliates they were ineligible and asking for repayment.
That determination was not a close call. As the Washington Free Beacon reported, Sen. Tom Cotton and 26 other Republican lawmakers had urged the DOJ to investigate Planned Parenthood over the allegedly fraudulent loan applications. The lawmakers argued that Planned Parenthood's own public statements showed the organization knew it was ineligible before its affiliates self-certified. The SBA's own data showed 38 loans totaling more than $80 million were improperly received under affiliation and size rules.
But when Joe Biden took office, the affiliates received another round of payments. And when Republicans pressed the SBA in April 2021 about what steps the agency had taken after deeming Planned Parenthood ineligible, something unusual started happening inside the agency's email system.
That same month, SBA General Counsel Peggy Hamilton wrote an email to agency leadership with the subject line "Benghazi (PPP/PPH) Decisions." Ernst's letter states plainly what she believes that meant:
"The context suggested that Benghazi was a code word for Planned Parenthood."
In a direct message, Hamilton wrote to colleagues: "Can I schedule a meeting so we can decision Benghazi (Planned Parenthood)?" A staff member replied: "Yes, let's talk Benghazi." Ernst noted that "PPH", the abbreviation used in the subject line, "is not an acronym used for the abortion provider, which is sometimes initialized PPFA, for Planned Parenthood for America."
The implication is hard to miss. Anyone searching government records for communications about Planned Parenthood's loans would find nothing under that name. The meetings and email chains were filed under "Benghazi" instead. National Review reported that the alleged purpose of using the code word was specifically to avoid detection in FOIA requests and other record-review processes.
The timeline tightened after a May 2021 Senate hearing. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky pressed SBA Administrator Isabella Guzman about $17 million in PPP funding that went to Planned Parenthood after the SBA had already deemed the organization and its affiliates ineligible. Paul did not mince words:
"You believe you are above the law.... It looks like you are specifically hiding this information from us."
Two days after that hearing, agency officials wrote in the "Benghazi" email chain about setting up a meeting to "discuss forgiveness." The following month, Guzman herself set up a Microsoft Teams meeting called "Benghazi (PPP/PPH) Decision." One email in the chain included the instruction to "inform WH as decisions are made."
By the summer of 2021, SBA officials, including Arthur Plews, who later became the agency's chief of staff, continued using the code word in communications even as Republicans kept pressing for answers. Ernst wrote that roughly $90 million in Planned Parenthood SBA PPP loans and interest were ultimately forgiven.
The pattern Ernst describes is not subtle. Congressional Republicans asked questions. The SBA's own lawyers began labeling their internal discussions with a word designed to make those discussions invisible to oversight. Then they forgave the loans anyway. And they kept the White House in the loop.
This is not the first time the Biden administration has faced scrutiny for alleged misuse of taxpayer funds and political favoritism. A Georgia state senator recently opened a probe into a $2 million Biden-era grant awarded under similarly questionable circumstances.
Ernst's letter to the Department of Justice invokes 18 U.S.C. § 2017, a statute that carries up to three years of imprisonment for anyone who conceals or attempts to conceal a federal record. She described what she found in blunt terms:
"It strains credulity to think SBA's General Counsel Peggy Hamilton was doing anything other than hiding her Planned Parenthood records from Congressional and public scrutiny and oversight."
Ernst added: "That's not something she is allowed to do under federal law, and, as a lawyer for almost three decades, she knew that."
The senator also raised the possibility that the problem extends beyond the SBA. She wrote that alleged conspirators "could currently work in the White House." And she broadened the scope of her request, stating that if other Biden SBA officials were "complicit in conspiring with SBA's General Counsel Peggy Hamilton and Administration Guzman to conceal or attempt to conceal federal records and evade public records retention laws, that is in clear violation of 18 U.S.C. S2017 and deserves investigation for potential Federal Records Act violations."
The allegations fit a broader pattern of Biden-era DOJ conduct that critics say weaponized federal law for ideological purposes. A separate DOJ report concluded that the Biden Justice Department collaborated with abortion groups, including Planned Parenthood, to target pro-life activists for FACE Act prosecutions, a finding that led to a $1 million settlement for one pro-life father who had been arrested by the FBI at his home.
The dollar figures alone demand answers. Ernst told Newsmax she uncovered the payments during a broader investigation into COVID-19 relief fraud. "I uncovered that the Biden administration had given Planned Parenthood affiliates through the Paycheck Protection Program over $90 million, forgave those loans, even though they were ineligible," she said. She warned that "the time to go after those fraudsters is running out" and is backing the Small Business Administration Fraud Enforcement Extension Act to give investigators more time to pursue pandemic-related fraud cases and reclaim funds.
Fox News reported that Republican senators had previously noted most Planned Parenthood affiliates had not returned the funds despite being told to do so. The SBA's own determination, that the affiliates were ineligible under affiliation and size rules, was never in serious dispute. What happened next was: the Biden administration forgave the loans instead of collecting them.
The PPP was designed to keep small businesses afloat during lockdowns. Planned Parenthood is not a small business. It is a sprawling national organization with hundreds of affiliates and annual revenues in the billions. The idea that its local arms could "self-certify" as small businesses strained belief from the start. The idea that senior government lawyers then hid the paper trail under a code word borrowed from a foreign policy disaster, and forgave the debt while Congress was actively demanding answers, goes well beyond bureaucratic sloppiness.
Several questions remain unanswered. Ernst's letter does not name every official involved. The specific Planned Parenthood affiliates that received and kept the money are not publicly identified. And the exact chain of authorization for the forgiveness, including who at the White House was "informed" and what they did with that information, is still unclear.
The Biden administration's record of shielding favored institutions from accountability extends across multiple agencies and episodes, from the legal entanglements of the president's own family to the selective enforcement of federal law against political opponents of the administration's allies.
Ernst's referral to the DOJ puts the ball in the hands of the current Justice Department. The statute she cites carries real teeth, up to three years in prison. Whether prosecutors pursue the case will say a great deal about whether the new administration is serious about cleaning up the mess left behind.
The facts Ernst has assembled tell a clear story: an agency told an organization it didn't qualify for taxpayer money, that organization kept the money anyway, and the agency's own lawyers used a code word to make sure nobody could find the records. That is not a policy disagreement. If the allegations hold, it is a cover-up, paid for by every American who played by the rules during the pandemic while $90 million walked out the door to an organization that didn't qualify for a dime of it.
When the government hides its own paperwork, the people paying the bills deserve to know why.
