"Chairman Williams Pens Letter to SBA on Lackluster Document Production in Voter Registration Investigation"
Summary
A House Committee on Small Business release dated August 19, 2024, announcing a letter from Chairman Roger Williams (TX-25) to the SBA about its response to the committee's July 30, 2024 Subpoena in the investigation of SBA voter registration activities under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Michigan Department of State (MDOS). It prints statements from Williams and Senate Ranking Member Joni Ernst (R-IA) criticizing the agency's cooperation. The quoted letter says that since the first request on March 20, 2024 the SBA has produced approximately 500 pages of documents, nearly 20 percent of them unresponsive. It lists records the committee says it has not received, including third-party communications, travel itineraries and the implementation plan required under Executive Order 14019 (E.O. 14019).
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Full text
Chairman Williams Pens Letter to SBA in Response to Agency’s Lackluster Production of Documents in Response to Latest Subpoena in Voter Registration Investigation August 19, 2024 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last Week, Congressman Roger Williams (TX-25), Chairman of the House Committee on Small Business, wrote to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) in response to the agency’s lackluster response to the Committee’s latest subpoena in the investigation into the SBA’s voter registration activities under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Michigan Department of State (MDOS). Chairman Williams and Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship issued the following statements. “Disappointingly, the SBA has continued to stonewall our investigation into their electioneering scheme in Michigan,” said Chairman Williams. “Instead of cooperating with basic congressional oversight, the SBA has once again given us documents that are not responsive to our requests – despite their claims otherwise. With the presidential election less than three months away, our investigation is more important than ever. Let me be clear, this Committee will not stop until we put an end to the SBA’s abuse of taxpayer resources, and ensure they refocus their efforts to the mission of supporting Main Street.” “There is a very simple solution here – for the SBA to stop playing games and be fully transparent,” said Ranking Member Ernst. “Instead, the agency has done everything in its power to delay, distract, and deny the American people from seeing what their government is doing. If the SBA has done nothing wrong, then it should welcome the opportunity to share its work.” Read the story here. Read the full letter here. Read excerpts from the letter below: “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. 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. “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). 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. “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. 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. Conversely, the Committee is aware of Freedom of Information Act litigation where SBA claimed that this document does exist. “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.”
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