Letter to The Honorable Isabella Casillas Guzman, Administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration (August 16, 2024)

Summary

Letter dated August 16, 2024 from Roger Williams, Chairman of the House Committee on Small Business, to Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), responding to the SBA's production of documents under the Committee's July 30, 2024 Subpoena. The letter states that since the Committee's first request on March 20, 2024, the SBA has produced approximately 500 pages of documents, and that nearly 20 percent were entirely unresponsive. It says the SBA has not complied with the subpoena for communications and calendars of SBA personnel involved in the SBA's Memorandum of Understanding with the Michigan Department of State, and that the SBA told Committee staff on three occasions that no implementation plan under Executive Order 14019 exists.

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                                              August 16, 2024

The Honorable Isabella Casillas Guzman
Administrator
U.S. Small Business Administration
409 3rd Street SW
Washington, DC 20416

Dear Administrator Guzman:

         The House Committee on Small Business (Committee) writes in response to the Small
Business Administration’s (SBA) lackluster production of documents pursuant to the
Committee’s July 30, 2024 Subpoena.1 Specifically, we express our confusion regarding the
SBA’s repeated claims of cooperation and responsiveness to our requests for information. Since
the first request was made by this Committee on March 20, 2024, the SBA has produced
approximately 500 pages of documents, a substantial portion of which is just one email chain;
further, nearly 20 percent of the documents produced by the SBA were entirely unresponsive to
the Committee’s requests. It remains unclear why the SBA has slow rolled productions and
wasted time producing documents that were either nonresponsive to Committee’s requests or
duplicative.

         In the five months since the Committee began its investigation, the only responsive
documents the SBA had produced prior to the Committee’s use of compulsory process were
limited email communications between the SBA and the Michigan Department of State (MDOS)
and a copy of its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Michigan pursuant to Executive
Order 14019 (E.O. 14019).2 However, long lapses of time between some emails and references
to other conversations in these emails, demonstrate the SBA has additional responsive emails
that it has yet to produce to the Committee.

       Since the issuance of the Committee’s subpoena, the SBA has produced some documents
which summarize past SBA events but are insufficiently detailed to satisfy the Committee’s
subpoena for transcripts. The SBA has not complied with the Committee’s subpoena for
communications and calendars from the SBA personnel involved in its MOU with MDOS. The
documents produced on August 13, 2024 in response to the subpoena for calendars are media


1
  See Letter from George Holman, Assoc. Adm’r, Cong. and Legislative Affairs, U.S. Small Bus. Admin., to Roger
Williams, Chairman, H. Comm. on Small Bus. (Aug. 13, 2024).
2
  Letter from Roger Williams, et al., Chairman, H. Comm. on Small Bus., to Isabella C. Guzman, Adm’r, U.S. Small
Bus. Admin. (Apr. 4, 2024).
The Honorable Isabella Casillas Guzman
August 16, 2024
Page 2 of 3



advisories—which the Committee has repeatedly told the SBA are not responsive to the calendar
requests. In fact, the SBA has also provided zero calendars for the SBA employees identified in
the Committee’s requests.

        Though they were also included in the subpoena, the SBA has failed to produce any of its
communications with third parties or small business owners; nor has the SBA produced any
Microsoft Teams messages, call records, or any other communication record. Additionally, the
SBA has provided no documents describing how it will implement this MOU, nor produced any
policies the SBA has developed to direct its staff on their responsibilities under the agreement
with MDOS. The Committee has also requested, but not received, the travel itineraries for the
SBA employees involved in this MOU, reimbursement documents for political travel, and
transcripts from events to which the SBA employees had traveled.3 The Committee has requested
the implementation plan the SBA was required to submit to the White House under E.O. 14019;
on three occasions, the SBA has told Committee staff no such implementation plans exist.4
Conversely, the Committee is aware of Freedom of Information Act litigation where SBA
claimed that this document does exist.5

         Throughout this investigation and the 118th Congress, the Committee has sought to work
cooperatively with the SBA. The Committee has met repeatedly with SBA staff to prioritize
documents for production, which was intended to streamline this process and reduce the
workload for SBA staff. For similar reasons, the Committee has also worked with SBA staff to
narrow the scope of all its requests. In May 2024, the Committee also requested transcribed
interviews with two SBA employees regarding this MOU, as well as travel at the SBA. The SBA
initially rejected this request, forcing the Committee to issue a subpoena compelling testimony
from these individuals. In good faith, attempting to work cooperatively with the SBA, the
Committee then made the extraordinary accommodation of allowing these individuals to appear
in voluntary transcribed interviews, instead of depositions. Despite these continued efforts to
accommodate the SBA, the productions from the SBA have remained woefully insufficient.

         The Committee is aware of, and was encouraged by, staffing changes at the SBA to better
handle its document production obligations. However, the Committee was disheartened to see
that these changes merely resulted in the SBA further insisting that the past productions were
sufficient. The Committee has been clear where the productions are lacking, and it seems with
this latest production that the SBA has yet to take those conversations seriously. This creates
substantial concerns regarding the earnestness of the SBA’s claims that it is improving this
process.



3
  See Letter from Roger Williams, et al., Chairman, H. Comm. on Small Bus., to Isabella C. Guzman, Adm’r, U.S.
Small Bus. Admin. (May 16, 2024).
4
  Letter from Roger Williams, et al., Chairman, H. Comm. on Small Bus., to Isabella C. Guzman, Adm’r, U.S. Small
Bus. Admin. (Apr. 4, 2024).
5
  America First Legal Foundation v. U.S. Dep’t of Agriculture, et al., No. 22-3029, 2023 WL 4581313, *1, *2
(D.D.C. July 18, 2023).
The Honorable Isabella Casillas Guzman
August 16, 2024
Page 3 of 3




       The Committee has broad authority to investigate “problems of all types of small
business” under House Rule X.3(l). The SBA’s persistent delays continue to undermine the
Committee’s investigation into these efforts. Further, the Committee continues to have serious
concerns regarding the SBA’s efforts to comply with its legitimate oversight requests and
expects future document productions to be far more robust.



                                           Sincerely,



                                ________________________
                                      Roger Williams
                                        Chairman
                              House Committee on Small Business


cc:    The Honorable Nydia M. Velázquez, Ranking Member


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