As Trump administration scandals go, it was right on brand: inviting a business associate of the family onto a White House council; in exchange, getting a sweet loan for the family; and then rewarding the associate with a government contract, as was reported here in the summer of 2020.
But Wednesday, the Democrats on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released a report detailing a potentially corrupt federal coronavirus loan to a struggling trucking company whose chief financier received an appointment to a White House board and gave Donald Trump’s son-in-law’s company a $184 million loan, the New York Times reports.
Created with the merger of Yellow Trucking and Roadway, YRC Trucking received a $700 million loan from the federal government in 2020 for pandemic relief when the company had been struggling mightily in the years prior to the pandemic and being ineligible for the loan prior to the intervention of Trump administration officials.
The company, with 19,000 employees, would have likely been deemed ineligible for a federal loan because of its financial problems, but after direct intervention by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Defense Secretary Mike Esper, the company was deemed a necessary company for the nation’s defense by the Pentagon and given the loan.
YRC enjoyed a close connection to the Trump Administration. White House advisor, Trump son-in-law and taker of souls Kushner invited the primary financier, Josh Harris of investment firm Apollo Global Management, to join a White House infrastructure advisory board around March of 2017; less than ten months later, Kushner’s cash-strapped family business received a $184 million loan from Apollo Global.
Kushner didn’t forget the favor: in 2020, Kushner pushed for YRC to get a $700 million loan, but the company was ineligible. Kushner was not alone: YRC lobbyists were working on White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to get a loan, who handed responsibility to Mnuchin.
However, YRC had previously been accused of overbilling the Pentagon for its services and was undergoing a department audit, so Pentagon officials balked at the loan and refused to certify YRC as necessary for national security. Upon hearing YRC was ineligible, Mnuchin got on a call with Esper the very next day, and within hours, Esper had certified YRC and the loan was pushed through in a week.
In 2022, the Biden Administration agreed to a settlement with YRC in which the company repaid more than $6 million in illegal overcharges it added to federal invoices from 2005 to 2013.
Questioned about the loan in a 2020 Congressional hearing, Mnuchin claimed that the loan was necessary to keep the company afloat and employing its 19,000 workers.
Trump had multiple ties to executives at Apollo Global: Darren D. Hawkins, to serve on a coronavirus economic task force; the company’s former chief executive, William D. Zollars, to the U.S. Postal Service’s board of governors; and of course, Kushner had a major loan with the group.
Democrats found that the money was used to help stabilize YRC’s debt, not used to pay employees, which was what coronavirus relief loans were targeted to do. The report also alleges the company falsified information in the application to make it more likely to be accepted.
The company sent a letter to Democrat James Clyburn, the chair of the subcommittee, denying the charges that the company was given favorable status due to connection to the Trump administration. The letter was signed by the counsel for the company, Marc E. Kasowitz, Donald Trump’s personal attorney who is also representing former Trump medical advisor Scott Atlas, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and Russian bank Sberbank.