Report: Trump Officials Overruled Pentagon to Approve Pandemic Loan
The Facts
Senior Trump admin. officials overruled the Pentagon to award a $700M loan to a trucking company with Trump ties, according to a report by a House Panel.
The findings came as part of an 11-month probe into whether the Cares Act, a measure passed by Congress at the start of the COVID pandemic to provide support to struggling businesses, was violated by the loan being improperly issued.
The Spin
Left narrative
Yellow Corp. executives acknowledged having a "hand in the cookie jar" when they were awarded this egregious loan package. It's further testament to the cronyism that characterized the Trump administration as well as its reckless disregard for taxpayer dollars.
Pro-Trump narrative
The report's allegations are not only unsubstantiated, but politically motivated. It's clear that Pentagon staff were going to recommend Yellow's eligibility before discovering a federal lawsuit against the company. Claims made by a Democratic-led House Select Subcommittee against Yellow and the practices of the Trump administration are baseless.
Establishment-critical narrative
This is just the latest example of how corporate lobbying has increasingly come to overwhelm every other countervailing force in American politics. The decline in labor unions and public interest groups has enabled an ever narrower and wealthier elite to proactively control central politics across different administrations.
