over two years into this pandemic we are
still learning details about money from
the first coveted relief package tonight
as part of our series the fleecing of
america we're looking at money
specifically given to assist companies
that were considered important to our
national security today house democrats
released a report alleging trump
administration officials awarded a 700
million dollar loan to a trucking
company over clear objections of career
defense officials the company yrc
worldwide has since been rebranded as
yellow the new york times pointing out
quote mark meadows the white house chief
of staff was a key actor coordinating
with yellow's lobbyists according to
correspondence that the committee
obtained the report also noted that the
white house's political operation was
quote almost giddy in its effort to
assist with the loan application the
loan raised immediate question
questions from watchdog groups because
of the company's close ties to the trump
administration and because this company
faced years of financial and legal
turmoil the washington post reporting in
a letter to the committee responding to
the report's findings which jello
provided to the post the company's
lawyer
familiar name mark kasowitz said the
committee had taken a partisan approach
and was peddling baseless speculation in
innuendo he didn't remember that name
mark kasowitz he was previously donald
trump's personal lawyer with us tonight
alan rappaport economic policy reporter
for the new york times break this down
for us because this wasn't just a ppp
loan businesses could get money this was
a loan specifically for companies that
help with our national security and this
company misrepresented how much business
they do with our department of defense
exactly and it was a 700 million dollar
loan which was by far the biggest loan
of any of these companies got it
actually was about 95
of all the national security money that
was given out
um so it was very surprising to people
when this came out back in 2020
investigations sort of started
immediately once it became clear that
there were a lot of ties between the
company and the trump administration the
company is financially backed by apollo
the private equity group
which had close ties to the
administration its ceo was on president
trump's covet economic council
and there had been an intense lobbying
campaign as we mentioned in the story uh
trying to get this company approved for
this huge loan and the company had been
almost on the verge of bankruptcy for
years anyway so this was really seize an
opportunity to you know to give it a
lifeline and a big bailout apollo the
private equity giant that could have
refinanced them but why would you when
the government will give you the money
why besides oh they're homeboys with the
trump administration why was the
administration so jacked up to help them
almost giddy why what was in it for them
well the politics of it were really good
in an election year this is you know 30
000 truckers or so or employees part of
this company it's a union company uh
jimmy hoffa pitched president trump on
this directly
in meetings uh and you know as we said
there was a lot of conversations between
mark meadows the political staff of the
white house uh trying to get this on
board republicans and democrats actually
in in congress were also you know trying
to lobby treasury department to give
this a close look um because you know
there were a lot of a lot of jobs at
stake here
here's where i wish this show had a gong
or like a want
sound bite i know this loan is part of
an investigation from the congressional
oversight commission that bipartisan
commission meant to look at at money
that went to the wrong places so
investigation going on anything going to
happen here
well you know it's really interesting i
i don't think that the money is going to
be clack or anything like that i think
in terms of outcome there's going to be
additional investigations the inspector
general
has been referred the case has been
referred to him it's potential it's
possible that this could be referred to
the doj
if if there are false claims that were
made under the false claims act i think
in the future you know we're going to
see additional restrictions on relief
funds uh the companies that have been
accused of defrauding the government
might have not have access to them
and additional sort of transparency
requirements to make sure that there's
there are not conflicts of interest
are there any tangible
things that we can point to that the
government is doing right now to change
the way we operate i mean things like
this voters don't hear about them right
this happens in closed door meetings in
the dark of night but voters on both
sides of the aisle are disgraced by
these types of stories this is exactly
why they hate government
exactly and there's a lot of political
sensitivity to this i mean there's been
you know five trillion dollars dumped
into the economy over the last few years
and relief money uh and lots of it has
been misused um and misspent and
defrauded just you know in part of the
effort to get this money out there so
quickly and this is a real example uh
you know of some of the questions
surrounding that and a lot of the
influence the lobbyists have had in
washington uh to make sure that money
got into into places into friendly hands
but not necessarily into the right hands
when you think about a desperate time of
economic crisis you don't think that
lobbyists are there working the phones
but that's exactly what happened how
many more yellows are out there this is
one story one big story but are there a
lot more we're going to hear about
i think so i mean there's been you know
a trillions of dollars of money that
have been spent since then the american
rescue plan you know the biden
administration is the one that's
responsible for that um you know we're
seeing lots of little cases of ppp fraud
that are starting to trickle out
from the paycheck protection program
emergency rental assurance as well as
you know the expanded unemployment
insurance programs that you know people
were getting money that they weren't
necessarily supposed to be getting so i
think over the coming years we're going
to see a lot of cases big and small of
how some of this money was misused
it's not partisan but it is awful we're
going to keep covering it
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