Friday on FNC’s “Hannity,” SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler predicted fraud revealed in Minnesota would be much more widespread and predicted criminal penalties for those found to be a part of it.
“Look, I think you’re doing a fabulous job,” guest host Jason Chaffetz said. “I think you’ve done amazing work in highlighting this and trying to cut it off as best you can, but — I mean, this is a lot of money that just keeps flowing.”
Loeffler replied, “Jason, you’re right. It’s a ton of money and it’s just the tip of the iceberg happening in Minnesota. And as I said, I think there’s more to come across the country. This is just the start. It’s the first state. But what we did on day one, remember it was back Thanksgiving weekend when we found out the depth of this fraud. It was estimated at a billion dollars. We know it’s well over that now. We started to investigate and within three days, we found $3 million worth of fraud.”
“So, I want to thank my great team for working over the holidays going through thousands and thousands of loans,” she continued. “We found about 7,900 fraudulent loans, including about 6,900 individuals. Some of those people had two loans that are never going to be able to do business with the SBA again. They’re on the do-not-lend list. They will not get a disaster loan. They cannot get SBA funding. And so, we’re going to pile — compile this data, turn it over to federal authorities because we do think as you just talked about with Chairman Comer, we’re going to see people in handcuffs. We’re going to see people in jail.”
“And I’m so grateful to the chairman for holding this committee, but it’s also taking action from those of us in the Trump administration who are in lock step with the chairman and making sure that people do go to jail and that we have accountability for the hardworking American people who are paying taxes every single day,” Loeffler added.
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