Former ‘Squad’ Rep. Cori Bush’s husband indicted for allegedly pocketing $20K in PPP loans for ‘personal benefit and enjoyment’

The husband of former Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) allegedly bilked taxpayers out of more than $20,000 in a COVID loan scheme and used the money for his “personal benefit and enjoyment,” according to the DC US Attorney’s Office.

Cortney Merritts, 46, was charged in a federal indictment Thursday with two counts of wire fraud related to allegedly fraudulent applications he filed with the Small Business Administration in 2020 and 2021 that allowed him to collect – and never repay – government funds from the pandemic-era Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

Merritts received an $8,500 EIDL loan from the SBA for his moving business in July 2020 after certifying that his company, Vetted Couriers, had six employees and generated $32,000 in gross revenue the previous year, according to the indictment.

The day after receiving the EIDL loan, Merritts filed another application with SBA through the same program for a different business, which he identified only as “Courtney Merritts” and claimed it employed ten people and generated $53,000 in revenue.

The Guardian-——Cori Bush, a two-term progressive representative from Missouri who lost her primary race in August amid an onslaught of spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), looks back on her four years in the House with pride as she prepares to start a new chapter of her political career.

“I’m happy about the work that we’ve done, but also I just feel like there’s just so much more to do, and I just want St Louis to have the best outcome,” Bush said. “I’m keeping the door open to many possibilities, but right now, all I can say is this: I’m not going anywhere. I’m just getting started.”

Bush, a member of the progressive “Squad” in the House, made a splash on Capitol Hill from her very first days there. After first gaining attention as an activist and community leader in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, Bush won a House race on her second attempt in 2020 and was sworn in just days before the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Less than a week after the attack, Bush introduced a resolution to expel Republican members who had supported efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, accusing them of sedition.

Seven months later, Bush made headlines again by staging a four-day protest on the Capitol steps to extend a pandemic-related moratorium on evictions. One month after that, she testified before the House oversight committee about her decision to have an abortion after she was raped at the age of 17.

“We worked really, really hard,” Bush said. “We’ve done some great things, and historic things, in our office in just a very short time, in four years, and I decided to be who I said I would be on the campaign trail, to be that person in Congress.”

Bush’s outspoken politics ultimately cost her a seat in the House. In the days after the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel, Bush introduced the Ceasefire Now resolution calling for an end to the war in Gaza. After its introduction, Bush became the target of attack ads from Aipac’s Super Pac, the United Democracy Project (UDP).

The Super Pac ran ads criticizing Bush for voting against Biden’s infrastructure bill and accusing her of failing to deliver for her district. The ads further imperiled Bush, who was already viewed as vulnerable after the justice department launched an investigation into her potential misuse of campaign funds for security services.

In total, UDP spent roughly $8.5m boosting Bush’s primary opponent, the St Louis county prosecutor Wesley Bell, who won the race by 5.5 points in August.

With her defeat, Bush became the second Squad member to lose a primary to an Aipac-backed challenger, after Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York lost his race to fellow Democrat George Latimer in June.

Bush pointed to the two losses as evidence of the need to get dark money out of US elections, and she specifically excoriated Aipac for unseating Black lawmakers. During Bush’s primary, UDP was accused of distributing campaign mailers that distorted her features to lean into racist tropes about Black people.

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