“Congress authorized and funded the PPP to help struggling small and medium sized businesses stay afloat during the pandemic. While many local businesses in our states received PPP assistance, the program ran out of funds in 2020, and some businesses were not able to receive a PPP loan in the first tranche of funding,” the senators wrote in a letter to Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton. “Despite the great need for access to PPP funding, we are concerned that certain small businesses were shut out of the program, while firearms companies reaped millions based on false representations.”
The lawmakers asked the Civil Division of the DOJ, the department responsible for prosecuting fraud perpetrated against the U.S. government, to review the certification of the PPP loans to the firearm industry and determine whether an investigation of the firearm industry is warranted under the False Claims Act.
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March 12, 2024