Trump Officials Gave Pandemic Loan to Trucking Company Despite Objections
The report indicated that Mr. Esper was not initially familiar with the status of Yellow’s certification. Before the call, aides prepared a summary of the analysis and recommendations of the department’s career officials that concluded that the certification should be rejected.
Before those reached Mr. Esper, Ellen M. Lord, the department’s under secretary for acquisition and sustainment who was appointed by Mr. Trump, intervened and requested a new set of talking points that argued that the company should receive the financial support “to both support force readiness and national economic security.” Ms. Lord could not immediately be reached for comment.
After the call with Mr. Mnuchin, Mr. Esper certified that the company was critical to national security, and a week later the approval of the loan was announced.
Mr. Mnuchin then sent an email to Mr. Meadows that included news reports praising the loan. He highlighted positive comments from James P. Hoffa, the longtime president of the Teamsters union, who according to documents in the report made a direct plea to President Donald J. Trump about the loan.
Mr. Esper and Mr. Mnuchin declined to comment.
A former Treasury official familiar with the process said the loan saved 25,000 union jobs during an economic crisis and prevented disruption to the national supply chain that the Defense Department, businesses and consumers had depended on. The former official said that because of the terms of the loan, taxpayers were profiting from the agreement.
At a congressional oversight hearing before leaving office in late 2020, Mr. Mnuchin said the loan was appropriate and necessary for saving jobs and maintaining trucking services to the Defense Department. Lawmakers from both parties, such as Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and Pat Roberts, the Republican former senator from Kansas, had sent letters to Mr. Mnuchin urging him to consider the loan application.
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Other lawmakers, however, have been deeply skeptical of the loan, which was previously the subject of an investigation by the Congressional Oversight Commission, a bipartisan panel that was set up to oversee portions of the relief money. Representative French Hill, a Republican from Arkansas who sits on that commission, said the loan should not have been given.
