EXCLUSIVE: A House committee is set to surprise Biden administration officials with tough document requests at a hearing on Wednesday after lawmakers allege the department has repeatedly failed to comply with subpoenas about its election activities in battleground states.
Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), chairman of the House Small Business Committee, argues that the Small Business Administration drafted a “strategic plan” for Michigan’s voter registration efforts in accordance with President Biden’s executive order, but that it doesn’t exist in the form required.
But a committee source told Fox News Digital that the existence of such documents was hinted at in the SBA’s response to a separate Freedom of Information Act request from an outside organization.
The committee’s Republican majority has been pressing the bureau for months to explain its activities in Michigan amid allegations that it engaged in partisan voter registration efforts in the key battleground state.
While the agency maintains that any work will be done fairly and in accordance with President Biden’s Executive Order 14019, “Promoting Access to Voting,” the committee noted that the order requires the agency to draft a “strategic plan” identifying ways it can “promote voter registration and voter participation.”
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Williams is targeting a partnership started by the Michigan Department of State and Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Guzman. (Getty Images)
Williams said the documents are important to the committee’s work investigating whether the contract between the SBA and the Michigan Department of State is a possible violation of the Constitution and a misuse of taxpayer money.
“The Committee is deeply concerned that SBA misled the Committee regarding the existence of a document that the Committee specifically requested in its subpoena, namely the Strategic Plan that SBA submitted to the White House Domestic Policy Advisor in September 2021 pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 14019,” said the letter, signed by Williams and Small Business Oversight Subcommittee Chairwoman Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas).
“SBA and its staff repeatedly asserted that this document did not exist and ultimately could not be provided to the Committee…” it read.
“In response to the subpoena, SBA officials told Committee staff that no such documents existed. The Committee was skeptical of SBA’s assertion because not producing the report would violate the terms of the Executive Order…Committee staff questioned SBA staff further about the documents on two occasions, providing additional background information to help SBA identify the documents…SBA again stated that no such documents existed.”
Williams and others accuse the SBA of using the agreement to funnel taxpayer funds to battleground states in a partisan manner during an election year.
Sources say evidence of at least the draft documents was uncovered in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit reportedly initiated by a conservative legal foundation. The SBA was the target of a lawsuit in May from the Oversight Project, a watchdog group affiliated with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“It’s interesting that the Small Business Administration has entered into an agreement with the Michigan Secretary of State ahead of this year’s election,” Kyle Brosnan, an attorney with the Oversight Project, said about the case in a previous interview.
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Donald J. Trump chats with Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, during the NCAA College Championships in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, Friday, Nov. 22, 2019. (Photo by Javin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“The SBA has maintained for months that key documents related to the implementation of the Biden-Harris Election Executive Orders do not exist, but court documents show they have not been honest. This revelation calls into question the SBA’s credibility and motivates our committee to continue to seek further clarification,” Williams said.
Williams said the way the memorandum was implemented was controversial and potentially unconstitutional, and he and other lawmakers have previously accused the SBA of using the memorandum to funnel resources to battleground states in a partisan manner.
He previously said the SBA was “diverting resources from supporting Main Street to registering Democrats” in Michigan.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, added, “The American people have a right to know what their government is doing with their tax money, and I will make sure the Small Business Administration is held accountable.”
The committee argues that, as ordered by the White House, the SBA had 200 days to submit a strategic plan.
The agency signed a “first-of-its-kind” agreement in March to help with voter registration in Michigan.
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A sign directing voters to the polls stands outside a polling place in Mountain Brook, Alabama, on March 5, 2024. (Ilya Nouberge/Getty Images)
In response to the Committee’s initial request, the SBA argued that its documents were not “final” and therefore did not satisfy the request, but the Committee requested both “interim” and “final” documents.
The documents were withheld from the FOIA lawsuit under an exception, but the committee has different privileges than private FOIA lawsuits, according to sources.
“The SBA cannot claim that documents do not exist simply because they are potentially classified documents,” they said.
In August, an SBA spokesperson asserted that the agency had provided “extensive testimony, briefings, recorded interviews, documents, and other information in response to congressional investigations, including the Committee’s most recent subpoenas.”
“We continue to respond to the subpoenas following our initial document submissions and any suggestion that our offices are acting improperly or are uncooperative is simply untrue,” the spokesman added.