Stimulus Payments: White House Press Secretary’s Family, Others Paid Millions in Government Loans Amid Wait for Second Check

The family of White House Press Secretary Kaleigh McEnany has reported received between $1-$2 million for their business as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. The program, which was bundled with the $2 trillion CARES Act, was designed to help small businesses stay afloat during widespread shutdowns.

However, as The Daily Dot points out, McEnany’s family is one of several businesses that received millions of dollars, despite them not appearing to meet the requirements for PPP. The data was released on Monday by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, following pressure from both government accountability experts and journalists, all of whom were expressing concerns about the overall lack of transparency. Granted, the info released doesn’t state any specific amounts. Although there is plenty of evidence that the funds may have gone to businesses outside those provisions.

PPP rules indicated that the loans were to be used to pay employees, rent and utilities, and would be forgiven on those conditions. Speaking with Fox News back in April, McEnany herself noted that the loans were designed for to companies with 10 or fewer employees. “The vast majority — as I noted, 1 million of the 1.6 million loans that went out — were companies with 10 or fewer employees,” McEnany told Ed Henry at the time. “That is what this program is designed to do. That is who it is helping.”

However, McEnany Roofing said it employs 141 people, per the loan document information. It’s also unclear at this point how the money was spent. Media Matters also pointed out that McEnany herself has also criticized government assistance in 2018, saying “it was exactly right that welfare recipients should feel enough shame to motivate themselves off of government assistance.”

Of course, the roofing company is far from the only recipient of PPP Loans. The California-based Yeezy LLC, which is owned by recent billionaire Kanye West, is listed in the log as having received somewhere between $2 million and $5 million. Yeezy also self-identified as being male-owned and a Black or African-American business, claiming that 160 jobs were saved using the loan, according to records.

The Los Angeles Lakers also found themselves with $4.6 million in payments, although the team later returned the money. While they had initially applied for the loan, they returned the money after learning that hundreds of thousands of small businesses were shut out.