Lawmakers slam SBA ‘stonewalling’ over Michigan voter memo as campaigning claims surface

EXCLUSIVE: Small business leaders in Congress lambasted the Small Business Administration (SBA) one week before Election Day, accusing the agency of continuing to “stonewall” oversight into its widely-criticized work with Michigan’s elections department.

Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, chair of the House Small Business Committee, previously noted the SBA used a 2021 President Biden executive order on “promoting access to voting” to forge a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) with the Michigan Department of State.

In March, the SBA announced its “first-ever” voter registration agreement with the Michigan agency. On May 7, Williams’ committee issued a rare subpoena for SBA aides after what the panel claimed was in part a failure to forward documents relating to a program “diverting [agency] resources away from assisting Main Street” toward partisan ends.

On Tuesday, Williams told Fox News Digital that with seven days to go, “the Biden-Harris SBA is still stonewalling our investigation into their partisan voter registration scheme.”

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“The lack of accountability has been astounding, and it’s clear that they are doing nothing more than stalling until the election is over.”

That should be concerning to the public, Williams suggested, adding the committee will continue to use “every resource available” to conduct oversight of SBA.

The way the MOU has been acted upon is controversial and potentially unconstitutional, Williams said, as he and others in Congress previously accused the SBA of using it to funnel resources to a swing state in a partisan way. He previously said the SBA is “diverting its resources away from assisting Main Street so it can register Democratic voters” in Michigan. 

Meanwhile, the top Republican on the Senate’s panel said that even though early voting is underway in Michigan and elsewhere, “we still have no clue how much the administration is trying to put its thumb on the scale in key battleground states.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said it is fitting that the administration has “prioritized” enacting its liberal agenda over responding in full to oversight efforts.

The SBA, under Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman, previously argued through a spokesperson to Fox News Digital that the agency has rightly provided “extensive testimony, briefings, transcribed interviews, documents and other information in response to congressional inquires, including the committee’s most recent subpoena.”

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Rep. Roger Williams, a Republican from Texas, speaks during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024.

The top Democrat on Williams’ panel, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., previously criticized her committee’s subpoenas in the SBA-Michigan case, saying they showed that Republicans “have rejected these principles to pursue a partisan inquiry.”

The committee was also approached with unconfirmed concerns about one of Guzman’s deputies, Fox News Digital has learned. Those who approached the committee claimed Associate Administrator for Field Operations Jennifer Kim, who is reportedly on a formal leave of absence.

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Voting stations. (iStock)

The committee was presented with allegations that Kim, a former organizer for the campaigns of Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and President Biden, according to her LinkedIn page, is either conducting or volunteering for Democratic campaign efforts in a swing state and using government-issued technology when doing so.

The committee previously requested the SBA’s mixed travel policy and travel calendars of top staff, but communicated that they were never received.

A spokesperson for the SBA told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that any allegations of “stonewalling” are “demonstrably false.”

“For nearly two years, the SBA has cooperated with the committee’s inquiry, testifying at multiple hearings, providing the committee staff with briefings, making agency officials available for transcribed interviews, and producing thousands of pages of documents responsive to their inquiry,” the spokesperson said. 

“Time and again, the SBA has shown that the committee’s claims are baseless.”

When asked about the allegations regarding Kim, the spokesperson said the agency does not comment on personnel matters.