truthout--2020-12-28--Trump and Barr Use Last Days to Execute the Most Federal Prisoners Since WWII

In its hurry to use its final days in power to execute federal prisoners , the administration of President Donald Trump has trampled over an array of barriers , both legal and practical , according to court records that have not been previously reported .
Officials gave public explanations for their choice of which prisoners should die that misstated key facts from the cases .
They moved ahead with executions in the middle of the night .
They left one prisoner strapped to the gurney while lawyers worked to remove a court order .
They executed a second prisoner while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the court to then dismiss the appeal as “ moot ” because the man was already dead .
They bought drugs from a secret pharmacy that failed a quality test .
They hired private executioners and paid them in cash .
The unprecedented string of executions is often attributed to Attorney General William P. Barr , and his role was instrumental : It was Barr ’ s signature that authorized the use of a new lethal injection drug , his quotes that trumpeted the execution announcements and his position as attorney general that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( Barr is resigning effective Wednesday . )
But a ProPublica review of internal government records shows that Barr did not act alone .
The push to resume federal executions for the first time since 2003 long predates Barr , with groundwork beginning as far back as 2011 and accelerating after Trump took office in 2017 .
It could not have happened without the help of Justice Department lawyers ; officials at the Bureau of Prisons ; two professors who endorsed the government ’ s injection method ; conservative Supreme Court justices @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself , who encouraged the executions and declined to commute them .
Trump and his surrogates don ’ t shy away from this .
Throughout the campaign they highlighted the executions as a contrast to Joe Biden ’ s opposition to the death penalty , reinforcing Trump ’ s “ law and order ” message .
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany even invoked the execution of Daniel Lee , who fell in with skinhead groups as a teenager and renounced those beliefs decades ago , to defend Trump after he declined to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The activation of the death penalty and appearance of being tough on crime played into the administration ’ s political strategy — the same political strategy that pushed for separating children and parents and using force against peaceful demonstrators , ” said Robert Dunham , executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center , a nonprofit that tracks executions .
“ An administration which is concerned about the rule of law and which respects the Constitution would have allowed court challenges to proceed and would not have attempted to carry out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declared unlawful.
” The Justice Department has killed 10 people since July , with three more executions scheduled before Biden ’ s inauguration .
Most every federal agency is rushing to wrap up unfinished business , cementing policy objectives in ways that will make them harder for the incoming president to unwind .
But the Justice Department ’ s pressing forward with executions , even after the election of a new president who opposes them , is uniquely irreversible .
The White House and BOP declined to comment .
In a statement , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the death penalty and carrying out capital sentences is not a political issue , nor have political considerations influenced the department ’ s decisions .
The death penalty is a law enforcement and public safety issue , and the department is obligated to carry forward these sentences regardless of who is the president or the attorney general.
” Trump Has Executed More Prisoners Than the Last 10 Presidents Combined A slim and shrinking majority of Americans support capital punishment , according to public polling .
But it remains popular with Republicans , especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strongest base of support for Trump , who , in 1989 , famously bought full-page ads in New York newspapers demanding the death penalty for five young Black and Latino men who were wrongly accused of attacking a white female jogger in Central Park .
“ Death penalty all the way , ” Trump said at a February 2016 campaign event in New Hampshire .
“ I ’ ve always supported the death penalty .
I don ’ t even understand people that don ’ t. ” Until this year , the Justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2003 .
This long interruption was as much practical as legal .
A drug that most states and the federal government used in lethal injections , a sedative called sodium pentothal , became unavailable because the sole American manufacturer stopped making it .
The drug shortage thwarted the Obama administration ’ s plan to execute convicted murderer Jeffery Paul .
States began using a similar drug called pentobarbital , and in 2011 federal prison officials observed several state executions , according to court records .
Shortly after Trump ’ s presidency began , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , wanted to resolve these issues so that BOP could resume executions .
Associate Deputy Attorney General Brad Weinsheimer said in a January 2020 deposition that Sessions began “ conversations with staff and BOP to move forward on that.
” One of the staffers involved was Matthew Whitaker , according to Weinsheimer .
Whitaker , who briefly led the Justice Department between Sessions and Barr , didn ’ t respond to requests for comment .
BOP made plans to use pentobarbital .
But it had also become scarce as manufacturers shunned its use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ compounding pharmacies , ” which mix ingredients for custom-made drugs .
BOP planned to import powdered pentobarbital from a “ foreign FDA-registered facility ” but later turned to a domestic bulk manufacturer .
It also hired a compounding pharmacy to create an injectable solution .
The government has guarded vendor identities , since public scrutiny could pressure them to back out .
A sample of the compounding pharmacy ’ s solution failed a quality test by an outside lab .
But according to Weinsheimer , BOP said the problem was the lab @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sent a new batch to a different lab .
BOP also explored using a different drug : the opioid fentanyl .
In a March 2018 memo , then-BOP Director Mark S. Inch said BOP found a fentanyl supplier but warned “ there may be negative publicity associated with using a drug to which so many Americans are addicted.
” For unclear reasons , BOP planned to have the executions carried out by two private contractors , rather than government employees .
The government won ’ t disclose the contractors ’ names or profession @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ If we didn ’ t pay them in cash , ” a BOP lawyer said in a deposition , “ they probably wouldn ’ t participate.
” BOP officials knew their new drug choice would face resistance in court ; lawyers have argued that pentobarbital would flood prisoners ’ lungs with froth and foam , inflicting pain and terror akin to a death by drowning .
BOP worked to fend off those concerns with expert witnesses who would say the drug was humane .
Finding these experts was challenging because most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do with executions .
The American Medical Association and other professional groups prohibit any participation , including the “ rendering of technical advice.
” “ Doctors are experts in unkilling , we are not experts in killing , ” said Dr. Joel Zivot , an anesthesiologist at Emory University who has testified that lethal injection of pentobarbital simulates death by drowning .
“ This is why lethal injection is so problematic .
It impersonates a medical act , but it ’ s not about medicine at all .
Killing is not a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an operating room.
” The Justice Department would later claim that “ BOP consulted with medical professionals ” ( plural ) .
That is not exactly true .
BOP engaged two expert witnesses .
The first , Craig W. Lindsley , is a professor of chemistry and pharmacology at Vanderbilt University .
He is not a physician or licensed care provider ; he has a Ph.D. , not an M.D .
In May 2017 , Lindsley wrote a two-page report for BOP stating that pentobarbital will take effect so rapidly the prisoner wouldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concluded , “ Of all the available options and protocols in use today , I believe this protocol to be the most humane.
” Lindsley declined to be interviewed , citing Justice Department instructions .
He did not disclose his compensation , but he was hired through a contract with a consulting firm called Elite Medical Experts that the Justice Department paid $ 22,000 in the same month as Lindsley ’ s report .
The company ’ s CEO , Dr. Burton Bentley II , did not respond to requests for comment .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a medical doctor : retired California anesthesiologist Joseph F. Antognini .
Antognini has said he personally opposes the death penalty as a Catholic .
But he also said he believes states have a right to his advice , comparing it to criminal defendants ’ right to a lawyer .
Antognini has not addressed how he squares his testimony supporting executions with his Hippocratic oath .
He did raise ethical considerations when he was asked to compare lethal injection to poison gas ( a comparison between methods , like the one Lindsley made ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over another , I guess that ’ s an ethical issue for me , ” he said in a deposition .
Antognini ’ s rare position as a doctor vouching for lethal injection has made him a valuable witness in capital cases , including a Missouri case that later reached the Supreme Court .
Antognini charges $ 400 an hour , $ 2,000 for a deposition , $ 4,000 per day in court and $ 2,000 per travel day .
In a deposition in the Missouri case , which involved the same lethal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would make the prisoner unconscious within 30 seconds and people can ’ t suffer while they ’ re unconscious .
“ Can you explain to me how you would have suffering in somebody who is unconscious ?
” Antognini said .
“ I don ’ t see how that can happen based on my understanding of how all this works.
” Yet just a few minutes earlier Antognini had acknowledged , “ We don ’ t know how anesthetics work.
” Scientists understand how the drugs act in the brain on a cellular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how they produce unconsciousness .
The Supreme Court accepted Antognini ’ s pentobarbital testimony .
Other courts have been skeptical , ascribing his views “ little or no weight.
” Reached by phone , Antognini said he was busy and agreed to talk at a later time .
When that time came , Antognini declined to comment .
“ I wish you all a very merry Christmas , ” he said , and hung up .
By the summer of 2019 , BOP determined that its drug supply was secure and it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gave Barr a list of 14 prisoners , out of about 60 on death row , who had exhausted their appeals .
The Justice Department has refused to disclose this list .
( Court records include a list from 2017 with 10 names , but they must not overlap entirely because two of the prisoners who Barr chose in 2019 were not on the earlier list . )
Barr decided whom to execute with the help of the then-deputy attorney general , Jeffrey Rosen ( set to become the acting attorney general ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Timothy Shea ( who later became acting U.S. attorney in Washington and now leads the Drug Enforcement Administration ) .
The officials mulled executing all 14 but decided to start with five .
They chose the five , according to Weinsheimer ’ s deposition , for the same reason that Barr would publicly announce on July 25 , 2019 : They were “ convicted of murdering , and in some cases torturing and raping , the most vulnerable in our society — children and the elderly.
” “ There was an effort to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 14 , ” Weinsheimer said .
“ This was an aggravating factor that seemed to apply.
” In fact , that wasn ’ t true .
Barr ’ s summary of the case of Daniel Lee incorrectly said he “ murdered a family of three , including an 8-year-old girl.
” The undisputed evidence was that Lee refused to kill the girl , so his co-defendant did .
The co-defendant was sentenced to life in prison , while Lee was sentenced to death .
Weinsheimer said he didn ’ t know if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ murdered children or the elderly .
There were , according to a review by ProPublica .
Barr ’ s announcement also justified the executions on the basis that “ we owe it to the victims and their families.
” This also was not true in Lee ’ s case : Family members of Lee ’ s victims have publicly come out against executing him ( as have the prosecutor and judge ) .
The families of the four other prisoners ’ victims supported the executions .
In any event , the Justice Department @ @ @ @ @ @ @ members when deciding who to kill , Weinsheimer said in his deposition .
The Justice Department also didn ’ t review the prisoners ’ physical or mental health as part of its selection , according to Weinsheimer .
One of the five , Alfred Bourgeois , had an IQ between 70 and 75 , and his lawyers argued he is intellectually disabled .
Another , Wesley Purkey , suffered from schizophrenia , dementia and Alzheimer ’ s disease , which his lawyers said made him unable to understand the reason for his execution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to schedule the executions in the order that the prisoners were convicted , with the oldest first .
However , they were not the oldest capital convictions , according to ProPublica ’ s review .
As for the executions ’ timing , Barr ’ s announcement did not explain why , after a 17-year hiatus , the first three executions were scheduled within one week of each other .
BOP officials voiced concern that these back-to-back executions would put more stress on their staff , the agency ’ s lawyer said in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ injection in Oklahoma went gruesomely awry , the state ’ s investigation concluded that one contributing factor was having two executions scheduled that day . )
Nevertheless , BOP ’ s lawyer said the agency booked three executions in one week because of “ guidance from the attorney general.
” Weinsheimer denied that Barr gave a “ direction ” on how to schedule the executions .
Even prisoners who have exhausted their post-conviction appeals can go back to court to try to stop their execution once a date is set .
A federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hold in November 2019 .
The appeals court disagreed in April .
Barr swiftly rescheduled the executions for Lee , Purkey and Dustin Honken , in a span of four days in July .
In this announcement , Barr cut two from the original five ( Bourgeois and Lezmond Mitchell ) , and added a new prisoner , Keith Nelson .
The unifying theme , he said , was “ murdering children , ” repeating his inaccurate summary of Lee ’ s crime .
On the day Lee was supposed to be executed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new injunction .
The appeals court declined to intervene , so the Justice Department went to the Supreme Court .
The Supreme Court ’ s conservative majority has been consistently hostile to last-ditch reprieves in capital cases .
“ Courts should police carefully against attempts to use such challenges as tools to interpose unjustified delay , ” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a 2019 case ( the Missouri execution that featured Antognini ’ s testimony ) .
The conservatives have been equally unsympathetic to objections to lethal injection , considering that the court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ traditionally accepted methods ” such as hanging , electrocution and firing squad .
“ The Eighth Amendment does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death , ” Gorsuch wrote in the Missouri case , “ something that , of course , isn ’ t guaranteed to many people , including most victims of capital crimes.
” Early on July 14 , five justices ruled that Lee ’ s execution could go ahead , saying that he had “ not made the showing required to justify last-minute intervention.
” Technically , Lee ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but the government issued a new same-day notice and went ahead with the execution around 4 a.m. Lee ’ s lawyers protested that there was still a separate court order that the Supreme Court hadn ’ t addressed , so officers left Lee on the gurney while government lawyers worked to wipe out that last obstacle .
“ That cautious step , taken to ensure undoubted compliance with court orders , is irreconcilable with the suggestion that the department ‘ rushed ’ the execution or disregarded any law , ” Rosen , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ July op-ed .
Less than an hour after a federal appeals court granted the government ’ s request , Lee was dead .
“ Today , Lee finally faced the justice he deserved , ” Barr said in a statement .
Later that day , at a White House press conference , Trump referred to Lee ’ s execution as part of his attack on the Democratic Party platform .
“ Abolish completely the death penalty , ” he said .
“ You know what happened today with regard to the death penalty.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ explicit in an email blast the next day .
“ President Trump ensured total justice for the victims of an evil killer , ” the campaign told supporters .
“ With the Trump administration slated to administer total justice to three more child murderers and rapists in the coming weeks , Biden should explain why they should be protected from paying the ultimate price for their evil , horrific crimes.
” That same day , July 15 , Purkey was scheduled to die .
Again after 2 a.m. , a sharply divided Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Purkey ’ s lawyers rushed to federal district court for a new emergency stay on the basis that his Alzheimer ’ s and schizophrenia left Purkey unable to understand his sentence .
But the Justice Department made clear that it would not wait to let that petition play out .
In a “ courtesy notice ” emailed to one of Purkey ’ s lawyers at 2:03 a.m. on July 16 , a senior Justice Department official said the execution would go forward at 4 a.m. , despite the new court filing .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would delay the execution to allow the judge … to consider the stay application , ” Hashim Mooppan , counselor to the solicitor general , said in the email .
“ In light of the Supreme Court ’ s orders today and on Tuesday morning , the government will not delay the execution further .
Absent a court order barring the execution , the govt intends to proceed.
” The judge , in fact , did say the execution should halt while he considered the motion , but he swiftly denied it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ procedural gamesmanship.
” “ Despite the risk of irreparable harm to Mr. Purkey , the balance of equities do not weigh in his favor , ” wrote the judge , James R. Sweeney II , who was appointed by Trump in 2017 .
Sweeney ’ s brief order did not specify what equities he weighed , but the government had argued that Purkey ’ s sentence had already been upheld multiple times .
As Purkey ’ s lawyers rushed to appeal , BOP went ahead with placing an IV in Purkey ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the appeals court made its ruling .
The court later dismissed Purkey ’ s appeal as “ moot ” because he was already dead .
Honken died the next day , the third that week .
As prisoners desperately fought the government ’ s execution plans in court , they argued that overdosing on pentobarbital would be so excruciating that even death by firing squad would be less painful .
Justice Department lawyers chafed at the suggestion .
In response , they said firing squads were “ more primitive ” than lethal injection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ regressive change.
” Two weeks later , however , the agency took steps to do just that .
The Justice Department proposed a regulatory change to authorize execution methods besides lethal injection , including firing squads , which remain legal in three states .
“ This proposed rule would provide the federal government with greater flexibility to conduct executions in any manner allowed by federal law , ” the agency said .
“ The proposed rule would therefore forestall potential future arguments by prisoners in litigation.
” The proposal made other tweaks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ address issues raised in litigation — not exactly admitting error , but tacitly acknowledging cracks in the government ’ s legal foundation .
While the proposal was formally signed by Barr , its point person was Laurence E. Rothenberg , a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy .
Though he is a career employee , Rothenberg ’ s LinkedIn profile picture shows him standing proudly with Barr , and he has staked out a public position supporting the death penalty .
In a 2004 law journal article ( also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Rothenberg described the death penalty as “ intrinsically just.
” He also defended executing juvenile offenders against claims that doing so violates international law .
In another article , from 2006 , Rothenberg and a Justice Department colleague attacked common critiques of the death penalty .
“ The extent of racial disparities in capital cases in the United States has been vastly exaggerated , ” they wrote .
Rothenberg has said that his criminal justice views are shaped by a family tragedy .
“ I also have a personal interest in , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the son of a murder victim , ” he said in 2009 congressional testimony about a victims rights law .
In 1974 , Rothenberg ’ s parents were shot , his father fatally , on a trip to the Virgin Islands .
The shooter was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison .
The regulation became final the day after Thanksgiving .
For the next round of executions , Barr ’ s announcement simply said that the two prisoners , William LeCroy and Christopher Vialva , were “ convicted of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or explanation for their selection .
Earlier this month , the Justice Department executed Vialva ’ s co-defendant , Brandon Bernard .
Bernard was 18 at the time and did not pull the trigger .
The prosecutor and five of the nine all-white jurors who convicted Bernard , who is Black , have since said his life should be spared .
The reality star Kim Kardashian tried unsuccessfully to convince Trump to commute his sentence .
At the federal death row facility in Terre Haute , Indiana , the inmates are allowed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The New York Times .
Alfred Bourgeois received his friend Bernard ’ s wrist watch for the single day before it was his turn to die .
Bourgeois was strapped to a gurney in the middle of a green-tiled room , an IV in his arm .
As the pentobarbital flowed , Bourgeois ’ stomach heaved and popped , according to George Hale , a public radio reporter who witnessed the execution .
The apparent gasping for breath was consistent with how lawyers have described the drowning sensation that the injection could cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , almost twice as long as Bernard ’ s .
Hale said , “ If Alfred Bourgeois was suffering that night , he suffered for a long time.
” There are three more federal executions scheduled in January — eight , six and five days before Biden ’ s inauguration .

The Trump administration has trampled over an array of barriers, both legal and practical, according to court records.
In its hurry to use its final days in power to execute federal prisoners, the administration of President Donald Trump has trampled over an array of barriers, both legal and practical, according to court records that have not been previously reported.
Officials gave public explanations for their choice of which prisoners should die that misstated key facts from the cases. They moved ahead with executions in the middle of the night. They left one prisoner strapped to the gurney while lawyers worked to remove a court order. They executed a second prisoner while an appeal was still pending, leaving the court to then dismiss the appeal as “moot” because the man was already dead. They bought drugs from a secret pharmacy that failed a quality test. They hired private executioners and paid them in cash.
The unprecedented string of executions is often attributed to Attorney General William P. Barr, and his role was instrumental: It was Barr’s signature that authorized the use of a new lethal injection drug, his quotes that trumpeted the execution announcements and his position as attorney general that holds the ultimate authority in capital cases. (Barr is resigning effective Wednesday.)
But a ProPublica review of internal government records shows that Barr did not act alone. The push to resume federal executions for the first time since 2003 long predates Barr, with groundwork beginning as far back as 2011 and accelerating after Trump took office in 2017. It could not have happened without the help of Justice Department lawyers; officials at the Bureau of Prisons; two professors who endorsed the government’s injection method; conservative Supreme Court justices who dismissed final appeals; and Trump himself, who encouraged the executions and declined to commute them.
Trump and his surrogates don’t shy away from this. Throughout the campaign they highlighted the executions as a contrast to Joe Biden’s opposition to the death penalty, reinforcing Trump’s “law and order” message. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany even invoked the execution of Daniel Lee, who fell in with skinhead groups as a teenager and renounced those beliefs decades ago, to defend Trump after he declined to disavow white supremacists in the first debate.
“The activation of the death penalty and appearance of being tough on crime played into the administration’s political strategy — the same political strategy that pushed for separating children and parents and using force against peaceful demonstrators,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that tracks executions. “An administration which is concerned about the rule of law and which respects the Constitution would have allowed court challenges to proceed and would not have attempted to carry out executions under a procedure that could be declared unlawful.”
The Justice Department has killed 10 people since July, with three more executions scheduled before Biden’s inauguration. Most every federal agency is rushing to wrap up unfinished business, cementing policy objectives in ways that will make them harder for the incoming president to unwind. But the Justice Department’s pressing forward with executions, even after the election of a new president who opposes them, is uniquely irreversible.
The White House and BOP declined to comment. In a statement, the Justice Department said: “Seeking the death penalty and carrying out capital sentences is not a political issue, nor have political considerations influenced the department’s decisions. The death penalty is a law enforcement and public safety issue, and the department is obligated to carry forward these sentences regardless of who is the president or the attorney general.”
Trump Has Executed More Prisoners Than the Last 10 Presidents Combined
Chart: Isaac Arnsdorf / ProPublica
“Death Penalty All the Way”
A slim and shrinking majority of Americans support capital punishment, according to public polling. But it remains popular with Republicans, especially white evangelicals. That coincides with the strongest base of support for Trump, who, in 1989, famously bought full-page ads in New York newspapers demanding the death penalty for five young Black and Latino men who were wrongly accused of attacking a white female jogger in Central Park.
“Death penalty all the way,” Trump said at a February 2016 campaign event in New Hampshire. “I’ve always supported the death penalty. I don’t even understand people that don’t.”
Until this year, the Justice Department hadn’t executed anyone since 2003. This long interruption was as much practical as legal. A drug that most states and the federal government used in lethal injections, a sedative called sodium pentothal, became unavailable because the sole American manufacturer stopped making it. The drug shortage thwarted the Obama administration’s plan to execute convicted murderer Jeffery Paul. States began using a similar drug called pentobarbital, and in 2011 federal prison officials observed several state executions, according to court records.
Shortly after Trump’s presidency began, his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, wanted to resolve these issues so that BOP could resume executions. Associate Deputy Attorney General Brad Weinsheimer said in a January 2020 deposition that Sessions began “conversations with staff and BOP to move forward on that.”
One of the staffers involved was Matthew Whitaker, according to Weinsheimer. Whitaker, who briefly led the Justice Department between Sessions and Barr, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
BOP made plans to use pentobarbital. But it had also become scarce as manufacturers shunned its use in executions. States resorted to using “compounding pharmacies,” which mix ingredients for custom-made drugs.
BOP planned to import powdered pentobarbital from a “foreign FDA-registered facility” but later turned to a domestic bulk manufacturer. It also hired a compounding pharmacy to create an injectable solution. The government has guarded vendor identities, since public scrutiny could pressure them to back out.
A sample of the compounding pharmacy’s solution failed a quality test by an outside lab. But according to Weinsheimer, BOP said the problem was the lab, not the compound itself, and sent a new batch to a different lab.
BOP also explored using a different drug: the opioid fentanyl. In a March 2018 memo, then-BOP Director Mark S. Inch said BOP found a fentanyl supplier but warned “there may be negative publicity associated with using a drug to which so many Americans are addicted.”
For unclear reasons, BOP planned to have the executions carried out by two private contractors, rather than government employees. The government won’t disclose the contractors’ names or profession, and it pays them in cash. “If we didn’t pay them in cash,” a BOP lawyer said in a deposition, “they probably wouldn’t participate.”
“Killing Is Not a Treatment”
BOP officials knew their new drug choice would face resistance in court; lawyers have argued that pentobarbital would flood prisoners’ lungs with froth and foam, inflicting pain and terror akin to a death by drowning. BOP worked to fend off those concerns with expert witnesses who would say the drug was humane.
Finding these experts was challenging because most doctors consider it unethical to have anything to do with executions. The American Medical Association and other professional groups prohibit any participation, including the “rendering of technical advice.”
“Doctors are experts in unkilling, we are not experts in killing,” said Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist at Emory University who has testified that lethal injection of pentobarbital simulates death by drowning. “This is why lethal injection is so problematic. It impersonates a medical act, but it’s not about medicine at all. Killing is not a treatment. An execution chamber is not an operating room.”
The Justice Department would later claim that “BOP consulted with medical professionals” (plural). That is not exactly true. BOP engaged two expert witnesses. The first, Craig W. Lindsley, is a professor of chemistry and pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. He is not a physician or licensed care provider; he has a Ph.D., not an M.D. In May 2017, Lindsley wrote a two-page report for BOP stating that pentobarbital will take effect so rapidly the prisoner wouldn’t feel a thing. He concluded, “Of all the available options and protocols in use today, I believe this protocol to be the most humane.”
Lindsley declined to be interviewed, citing Justice Department instructions. He did not disclose his compensation, but he was hired through a contract with a consulting firm called Elite Medical Experts that the Justice Department paid $22,000 in the same month as Lindsley’s report. The company’s CEO, Dr. Burton Bentley II, did not respond to requests for comment.
BOP’s second expert witness was a medical doctor: retired California anesthesiologist Joseph F. Antognini. Antognini has said he personally opposes the death penalty as a Catholic. But he also said he believes states have a right to his advice, comparing it to criminal defendants’ right to a lawyer.
Antognini has not addressed how he squares his testimony supporting executions with his Hippocratic oath. He did raise ethical considerations when he was asked to compare lethal injection to poison gas (a comparison between methods, like the one Lindsley made). “Recommending one method of execution over another, I guess that’s an ethical issue for me,” he said in a deposition.
Antognini’s rare position as a doctor vouching for lethal injection has made him a valuable witness in capital cases, including a Missouri case that later reached the Supreme Court. Antognini charges $400 an hour, $2,000 for a deposition, $4,000 per day in court and $2,000 per travel day.
In a deposition in the Missouri case, which involved the same lethal injection drug, Antognini testified that pentobarbital would make the prisoner unconscious within 30 seconds and people can’t suffer while they’re unconscious. “Can you explain to me how you would have suffering in somebody who is unconscious?” Antognini said. “I don’t see how that can happen based on my understanding of how all this works.”
Yet just a few minutes earlier Antognini had acknowledged, “We don’t know how anesthetics work.” Scientists understand how the drugs act in the brain on a cellular level, he explained, but not how they produce unconsciousness.
The Supreme Court accepted Antognini’s pentobarbital testimony. Other courts have been skeptical, ascribing his views “little or no weight.”
Reached by phone, Antognini said he was busy and agreed to talk at a later time. When that time came, Antognini declined to comment. “I wish you all a very merry Christmas,” he said, and hung up.
“Some Objective Factor”
By the summer of 2019, BOP determined that its drug supply was secure and it was ready to schedule executions. The agency gave Barr a list of 14 prisoners, out of about 60 on death row, who had exhausted their appeals. The Justice Department has refused to disclose this list. (Court records include a list from 2017 with 10 names, but they must not overlap entirely because two of the prisoners who Barr chose in 2019 were not on the earlier list.)
Barr decided whom to execute with the help of the then-deputy attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen (set to become the acting attorney general), and aides including Paul Perkins and Timothy Shea (who later became acting U.S. attorney in Washington and now leads the Drug Enforcement Administration). The officials mulled executing all 14 but decided to start with five.
They chose the five, according to Weinsheimer’s deposition, for the same reason that Barr would publicly announce on July 25, 2019: They were “convicted of murdering, and in some cases torturing and raping, the most vulnerable in our society — children and the elderly.”
“There was an effort to find some objective factor in looking at the 14,” Weinsheimer said. “This was an aggravating factor that seemed to apply.”
In fact, that wasn’t true. Barr’s summary of the case of Daniel Lee incorrectly said he “murdered a family of three, including an 8-year-old girl.” The undisputed evidence was that Lee refused to kill the girl, so his co-defendant did. The co-defendant was sentenced to life in prison, while Lee was sentenced to death.
Weinsheimer said he didn’t know if there were other death row inmates who murdered children or the elderly. There were, according to a review by ProPublica.
Barr’s announcement also justified the executions on the basis that “we owe it to the victims and their families.” This also was not true in Lee’s case: Family members of Lee’s victims have publicly come out against executing him (as have the prosecutor and judge). The families of the four other prisoners’ victims supported the executions. In any event, the Justice Department didn’t consult victims’ family members when deciding who to kill, Weinsheimer said in his deposition.
The Justice Department also didn’t review the prisoners’ physical or mental health as part of its selection, according to Weinsheimer. One of the five, Alfred Bourgeois, had an IQ between 70 and 75, and his lawyers argued he is intellectually disabled. Another, Wesley Purkey, suffered from schizophrenia, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, which his lawyers said made him unable to understand the reason for his execution.
Weinsheimer said the Justice Department decided to schedule the executions in the order that the prisoners were convicted, with the oldest first. However, they were not the oldest capital convictions, according to ProPublica’s review.
As for the executions’ timing, Barr’s announcement did not explain why, after a 17-year hiatus, the first three executions were scheduled within one week of each other. BOP officials voiced concern that these back-to-back executions would put more stress on their staff, the agency’s lawyer said in a deposition. (After a 2014 lethal injection in Oklahoma went gruesomely awry, the state’s investigation concluded that one contributing factor was having two executions scheduled that day.) Nevertheless, BOP’s lawyer said the agency booked three executions in one week because of “guidance from the attorney general.” Weinsheimer denied that Barr gave a “direction” on how to schedule the executions.
“Moot”
Even prisoners who have exhausted their post-conviction appeals can go back to court to try to stop their execution once a date is set. A federal judge in Washington put the executions on hold in November 2019. The appeals court disagreed in April. Barr swiftly rescheduled the executions for Lee, Purkey and Dustin Honken, in a span of four days in July. In this announcement, Barr cut two from the original five (Bourgeois and Lezmond Mitchell), and added a new prisoner, Keith Nelson. The unifying theme, he said, was “murdering children,” repeating his inaccurate summary of Lee’s crime.
On the day Lee was supposed to be executed, the judge in Washington ordered a new injunction. The appeals court declined to intervene, so the Justice Department went to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has been consistently hostile to last-ditch reprieves in capital cases. “Courts should police carefully against attempts to use such challenges as tools to interpose unjustified delay,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a 2019 case (the Missouri execution that featured Antognini’s testimony).
The conservatives have been equally unsympathetic to objections to lethal injection, considering that the court never found a constitutional problem with “traditionally accepted methods” such as hanging, electrocution and firing squad. “The Eighth Amendment does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death,” Gorsuch wrote in the Missouri case, “something that, of course, isn’t guaranteed to many people, including most victims of capital crimes.”
Early on July 14, five justices ruled that Lee’s execution could go ahead, saying that he had “not made the showing required to justify last-minute intervention.” Technically, Lee’s death warrant had expired at midnight, but the government issued a new same-day notice and went ahead with the execution around 4 a.m. Lee’s lawyers protested that there was still a separate court order that the Supreme Court hadn’t addressed, so officers left Lee on the gurney while government lawyers worked to wipe out that last obstacle. “That cautious step, taken to ensure undoubted compliance with court orders, is irreconcilable with the suggestion that the department ‘rushed’ the execution or disregarded any law,” Rosen, the deputy attorney general, wrote in a July op-ed. Less than an hour after a federal appeals court granted the government’s request, Lee was dead.
“Today, Lee finally faced the justice he deserved,” Barr said in a statement.
Later that day, at a White House press conference, Trump referred to Lee’s execution as part of his attack on the Democratic Party platform. “Abolish completely the death penalty,” he said. “You know what happened today with regard to the death penalty.”
Trump’s campaign was more explicit in an email blast the next day. “President Trump ensured total justice for the victims of an evil killer,” the campaign told supporters. “With the Trump administration slated to administer total justice to three more child murderers and rapists in the coming weeks, Biden should explain why they should be protected from paying the ultimate price for their evil, horrific crimes.”
That same day, July 15, Purkey was scheduled to die. Again after 2 a.m., a sharply divided Supreme Court lifted the outstanding court orders. Purkey’s lawyers rushed to federal district court for a new emergency stay on the basis that his Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia left Purkey unable to understand his sentence. But the Justice Department made clear that it would not wait to let that petition play out.
In a “courtesy notice” emailed to one of Purkey’s lawyers at 2:03 a.m. on July 16, a senior Justice Department official said the execution would go forward at 4 a.m., despite the new court filing. “Your colleague asked me whether the govt would delay the execution to allow the judge … to consider the stay application,” Hashim Mooppan, counselor to the solicitor general, said in the email. “In light of the Supreme Court’s orders today and on Tuesday morning, the government will not delay the execution further. Absent a court order barring the execution, the govt intends to proceed.”
The judge, in fact, did say the execution should halt while he considered the motion, but he swiftly denied it, and chastised Purkey’s lawyers for “procedural gamesmanship.”
“Despite the risk of irreparable harm to Mr. Purkey, the balance of equities do not weigh in his favor,” wrote the judge, James R. Sweeney II, who was appointed by Trump in 2017. Sweeney’s brief order did not specify what equities he weighed, but the government had argued that Purkey’s sentence had already been upheld multiple times.
As Purkey’s lawyers rushed to appeal, BOP went ahead with placing an IV in Purkey’s arm. He was dead before the appeals court made its ruling. The court later dismissed Purkey’s appeal as “moot” because he was already dead.
Honken died the next day, the third that week.
“A Personal Interest”
As prisoners desperately fought the government’s execution plans in court, they argued that overdosing on pentobarbital would be so excruciating that even death by firing squad would be less painful. Justice Department lawyers chafed at the suggestion. In response, they said firing squads were “more primitive” than lethal injection, and reintroducing them would be a “regressive change.”
Two weeks later, however, the agency took steps to do just that. The Justice Department proposed a regulatory change to authorize execution methods besides lethal injection, including firing squads, which remain legal in three states. “This proposed rule would provide the federal government with greater flexibility to conduct executions in any manner allowed by federal law,” the agency said. “The proposed rule would therefore forestall potential future arguments by prisoners in litigation.”
The proposal made other tweaks to the department’s regulations to address issues raised in litigation — not exactly admitting error, but tacitly acknowledging cracks in the government’s legal foundation.
While the proposal was formally signed by Barr, its point person was Laurence E. Rothenberg, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy. Though he is a career employee, Rothenberg’s LinkedIn profile picture shows him standing proudly with Barr, and he has staked out a public position supporting the death penalty.
In a 2004 law journal article (also published by the conservative Federalist Society), Rothenberg described the death penalty as “intrinsically just.” He also defended executing juvenile offenders against claims that doing so violates international law.
In another article, from 2006, Rothenberg and a Justice Department colleague attacked common critiques of the death penalty. “The extent of racial disparities in capital cases in the United States has been vastly exaggerated,” they wrote.
Rothenberg has said that his criminal justice views are shaped by a family tragedy. “I also have a personal interest in, and commitment to, this work, as the son of a murder victim,” he said in 2009 congressional testimony about a victims rights law. In 1974, Rothenberg’s parents were shot, his father fatally, on a trip to the Virgin Islands. The shooter was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The regulation became final the day after Thanksgiving.
“It Didn’t Go Well”
For the next round of executions, Barr’s announcement simply said that the two prisoners, William LeCroy and Christopher Vialva, were “convicted of murder.” He gave no other reason or explanation for their selection.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department executed Vialva’s co-defendant, Brandon Bernard. Bernard was 18 at the time and did not pull the trigger. The prosecutor and five of the nine all-white jurors who convicted Bernard, who is Black, have since said his life should be spared. The reality star Kim Kardashian tried unsuccessfully to convince Trump to commute his sentence.
At the federal death row facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, the inmates are allowed to leave each other bequests, according to The New York Times. Alfred Bourgeois received his friend Bernard’s wrist watch for the single day before it was his turn to die.
Bourgeois was strapped to a gurney in the middle of a green-tiled room, an IV in his arm. As the pentobarbital flowed, Bourgeois’ stomach heaved and popped, according to George Hale, a public radio reporter who witnessed the execution. The apparent gasping for breath was consistent with how lawyers have described the drowning sensation that the injection could cause.
Spent some time reviewing my notes and @NPR coverage from the five most recent federal executions in Terre Haute, Indiana. The execution of Alfred Bourgeois last Friday stands apart from the others in several important ways. It didn’t go well. — George Hale | جورج هيل (@georgehale) December 16, 2020
Bourgeois’ death took 28 minutes, almost twice as long as Bernard’s. Hale said, “If Alfred Bourgeois was suffering that night, he suffered for a long time.”
There are three more federal executions scheduled in January — eight, six and five days before Biden’s inauguration.
Lexi Churchill, Derek Willis, and Lydia DePillis contributed reporting.
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truthout--2020-12-28--Members of Congress Profited From Paycheck Protection Program

As members of Congress pat themselves on the back for passing a new coronavirus relief package after a nine-month impasse , Americans can count on less money in the form of stimulus checks and unemployment insurance than they did in the spring , when Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid , Relief , and Economic Security Act ( CARES Act ) — and took advantage of it themselves .
A Sludge analysis of COVID bailout data found that companies at which 28 members of Congress or their spouses hold positions received at least $ 27 million in loans likely to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revelation that so many members of Congress personally benefited from the Paycheck Protection Program ( PPP ) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans ( EIDL ) authorized by the CARES Act comes as Congress must consider how to address President Trump ’ s Tuesday night demand that all Americans be given $ 2,000 stimulus checks , after their Monday night bill cut in half unemployment insurance and stimulus checks for Americans compared to an earlier House proposal .
President Trump criticized the bill but fell short of saying he ’ ll veto it ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ override a veto .
On Thursday morning , House Republicans blocked Democrats ’ attempt to increase stimulus check payments from $ 600 to $ 2,000 .
Sludge found that 18 congressional Republicans and one Libertarian have received $ 21.7 million for 38 businesses with which they are associated .
Nine Democrats received $ 6.1 million for 11 of their own businesses .
An additional roughly $ 54 million went to nonprofits , think tanks and policy institutes , congressional caucuses , and higher education institutions tied to members of both parties .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to pass Monday ’ s COVID relief package , two Democrats and 57 Republicans voted against it .
Among the Republicans who voted to not fund a second round of PPP , among other provisions , are 10 who received $ 15.3 million in PPP loans from the CARES Act .
“ The opportunities for corruption and scandal are particularly ripe when the business interests of members of Congress and other government officials go to the trough for public funds from programs they helped design , ” said Craig Holman of Public Citizen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Like the larger business that…reaped the greatest rewards from the PPP program , government officials themselves have inside knowledge of how the application process works and who to contact for the public assistance .
Even if no deliberate favoritism is involved , the optics of potential self-dealing alone undermines public confidence in these programs.
” Rep. Brett Guthrie ( R-Ky. ) was one of the members who voted nay on Monday night .
He also benefited from PPP funding when his family ’ s business received $ 4.3 million in loans that most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Along with many other Republicans , Guthrie had decried stimulus spending aimed at ordinary workers and individuals who do not earn six digit salaries .
In July , Guthrie , PPP recipient Rep. Ralph Norman ( R-S.C. ) and 33 other GOP representatives wrote to President Trump and implored him to stop extended unemployment benefits from reaching jobless Americans in the spring and summer .
Extending the additional $ 600 in weekly unemployment checks would “ only slow our economic recovery , ” the lawmakers wrote .
It is not illegal or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ members to hold positions outside their duties in Congress — and many do , while simultaneously crafting legislation that will help those companies , Sludge found in July .
While the loans to lawmakers certainly are helpful for their businesses , some of the biggest financial assistance from the CARES Act likely comes in the form of tax relief for so-called “ pass through ” business entities , such as LLCs .
It is common for members of Congress to be affiliated with or invested in such companies , Sludge ’ s analysis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allow for such companies to receive an immediate refund on losses from prior years and other lucrative tax deductions that amount to a windfall .
The biggest winners will be “ the roughly 43,000 taxpayers with $ 1 million or more in annual income [ that ] will reap 82 percent of the benefits and get an average tax cut of more than $ 1.6 million , ” according to tax expert Steve Rosenthal , writing in Forbes .
Congress could have targeted relief to the small businesses who need it most rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ argued .
Of all the private companies members of Congress are associated with , the majority — 205 of 347 — are LLCs , according to Sludge ’ s analysis .
• Vern Buchanan ( R-Fla. ) , net worth $ 73.9 million and the fourth-richest member of Congress , received $ 2.8 million in loans for four of his 27 companies .
• Kevin Hern ( R-Okla. ) , net worth $ 60.9 million , received a loan of $ 1,070,000 for his KTAK Corporation .
Hern , who owns 97 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at between $ 5 and $ 25 million last year .
• Norman , net worth $ 43.4 million , received $ 306,520 for four of his 20 companies .
• Mitch McConnell and wife Elaine Chao , with a combined net worth of $ 34.4 million , are tied to a loan for the Chao-family owned Foremost Maritime Inc. of $ 417,700 .
• Roger Williams ( R-Texas ) , net worth $ 27.7 , received $ 1,430,000 for his JRW Corporation .
Last year , he valued the company at more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pence , net worth $ 12.6 million , received a loan of $ 79,441 for his Pence Group , LLC , which he valued on his financial disclosure as worth between $ 5 and $ 25 million .
• T.J. Cox ( D-Calif. ) , net worth $ 11.8 million , received $ 609,825 for two of his 26 businesses .
• Nita Lowey ( D-N.Y. ) , net worth $ 10.9 million , is tied to a loan of $ 1,100,000.00 that went to a law firm where her husband is chairman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mike Kelly ( R-Pa. ) , net worth $ 10.4 million , received $ 974,100 for four of his car dealerships .
• Ralph Abraham ( R-La . )
, net worth $ 4.8 million , received loans of $ 38,300 for two of his four companies .
• Earl Blumenaeur ( D-Ore. ) , net worth $ 4.5 million , received $ 432,734 for his two companies .
• Vicki Hartzler ( R-Mo . )
, net worth $ 3.8 million , is tied to $ 451,200 for her husband ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at between $ 1 and $ 5 million and from which he claimed as much as $ 1 million in income last year .
• Markwayne Mullin ( R-Okla. ) , net worth $ 3.7 million , received $ 988,700 for his two family plumbing businesses .
Just as the majority of PPP money went to large companies and not the mom-and-pop small businesses the funds were intended for , Congress ’ PPP haul went to some of its richest members .
Fourteen members who rank in the top 100 wealthiest in Congress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 354.7 million , received or are tied to entities that received $ 11.4 millions in loans .
Among them are car dealerships owned by Vern Buchanan ( R-Fla. ) , which have been open since March as Florida pursued an aggressive re-opening strategy .
The 12th-richest member of Congress , Roger Williams ( R-Texas ) , received more than $ 1 million for a company he values at more than $ 50 million and where he is the sole director and president , according to his annual financial disclosure .
Kevin Hern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1 million for the five McDonald ’ s restaurants he owns a 97 percent stake in , even though dine-in service resumed in May .
But these wealthy members who received PPP money don ’ t make up the largest loans granted to lawmakers .
• Carol Miller ( R-W.V . )
is the legal secretary of four of five of her husband ’ s car dealerships , which received loans totaling $ 3.1 million .
• Two wineries and two farms tied to Devin Nunes ( R-CA ) received a total $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Businesses owned by T.J. Cox received more than $ 600,000 in PPP and EIDL loans .
• A hospitality company owned by Ed Case ( D-HI ) received $ 1.9 million thanks to the CARES Act .
Two economic development organizations with which he is associated received a combined $ 670,030 .
• Mike Kelly ’ s $ 974,100 in loans for his car dealerships .
( Unlike his auto dealer colleagues in West Virginia and Florida , Pennsylvania did not deem the businesses essential and only allowed car sales online . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ real estate companies took in a combined $ 306,520 in loans .
Eight Republicans and two Democrats comprise the ten highest loan amounts tied to or received by individual members .
Atop the list is Carol Miller ( R-W.V . )
, the legal secretary for her husband ’ s car dealerships , which received more than $ 3.1 million in loans despite the fact that auto dealers were deemed essential businesses by Gov .
Jim Justice in March .
Two wineries and two farms tied to Devin Nunes ( R-Calif. ) received @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money .
The biggest single loan to a member ’ s private company went to Trace Die Cast Inc. , a family-run auto parts manufacturing operation based in Bowling Spring where Guthrie is a board member .
“ Americans should never have to wonder how their elected officials are influenced by their personal businesses , ” said Jordan Libowitz of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ( CREW ) .
“ Unfortunately , we now have to question that as a default.
” Hundreds of members of Congress hold positions at private @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do under federal law and House and Senate ethics rules .
( Members are barred from holding positions at publicly-traded companies . )
Those positions are listed on their annual financial disclosures , which provide insight into their finances and business interests .
Sludge combed all 535 members of Congress ’ most recent annual disclosures and compiled positions held at private companies and nonprofits .
Once those positions were identified , Sludge entered the entities into a database created by Accountable.US , a nonpartisan watchdog group that compiled PPP and Economic Injury @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the Small Business Administration .
Sludge used that data to find previously unreported loans , combining it with reports about wealthy members bailing out their or their spouse ’ s companies with COVID relief funds .
The result is the first publicly-searchable database of COVID bailout money for members of Congress .
Sludge is making this one-of-a-kind database available to the public to promote transparency about the loans , which have been scrutinized from the beginning as mostly benefiting wealthy Americans .
Guthrie counts among those Americans .
Worth an estimated $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the top 40 richest members of Congress and maintains a position at Trace Die Cast .
Listing himself as a board member of the company on his financial disclosure , Guthrie notes that the position is “ uncompensated ” as many members of Congress do for their own positions with private companies — House and Senate ethics rules prevent them from being paid for positions held outside their duties as lawmakers .
Still , his ownership stake is worth between $ 500,001 and $ 1 million , according to his financial disclosure , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 5 million invested in the company through a family trust .
The PPP loans have been credited for injecting billions of dollars into the economy quickly but criticized for a scattershot approach that has benefited mostly wealthy , well-connected companies .
No one has suggested that members of Congress are breaking the law by taking advantage of the Small Business Administration loans , but it also isn ’ t known whether entities tied to members of Congress received special treatment , as many large and well-connected businesses apparently did .
At least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contributions from individuals and PACs affiliated with the financial institutions that approved their companies ’ PPP loans .
Guthrie has received $ 3,000 since 2008 from Gary Broady , director of Franklin Bank .
Guthrie ’ s car part business ’ $ 4.37 million PPP loan was approved by Franklin Bank .
Kevin Hern has received $ 5,400 in contributions since 2017 from Frank X Henke , president & CEO at American Bank & Trust Co , which approved a $ 1.07 million loan to Hern ’ s KTAK Corporation , a S @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Vicky Hartzler has received $ 1,500 from Hawthorn Bank CEO and President David Turner .
Hawthorn Bank approved Hartzler Farm ’ s $ 26,900 PPP loan .
Finally , Vern Buchanan has taken in $ 5,000 from the PAC of BMO Harris Bank since 2007 .
BMO Harris Bank approved $ 2.23 million in PPP funds for Buchanan ’ s Sarasota 500 LLC and $ 384,000 for his Nissan of Elizabeth City car dealership .
Ten Republicans who received loans for their private companies voted against the TRUTH Act , which would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ identified by the SBA — Ralph Norman , Brett Guthrie , Vicki Hartzler , Kevin Hern , Rick Allen , Greg Pence , Devin Nunes , Markwayne Mullin , Roger Williams , and Mike Kelly .
An 11th Republican recipient of COVID bailout money , Vern Buchanan , did not vote .
“ It ’ s no surprise that there are members of Congress who benefited from PPP loans and would not want their constituents to know about it , ” CREW ’ s Libowitz said .
The number of loans and members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and financial conflicts of interest that have long dogged Congress .
While Congress was able to secure loans for their own companies and nonprofits , Black- and minority-owned businesses have struggled to get access to the money .
The discovery of the substantial loans obtained by members of Congress comes as lawmakers passed only the second package with direct relief for many Americans since the pandemic began .
Included in that package is an additional $ 284 billion in PPP funding but significantly reduced stimulus checks and unemployment benefits compared to the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some members , including Guthrie and Norman , have been pushing for Congress to make a surplus of $ 130 billion in PPP money that was left behind from the spring bailout round available to businesses for a second loan application .
Guthrie and Norman were also among 37 Republicans who wrote to President Trump in July , urging him to halt extended unemployment benefits for millions of out-of-work Americans .
The extra $ 600 that unemployed Americans received each week under the CARES Act caused some workers to earn more money from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a common complaint among Republican politicians about the bill ’ s extended unemployment benefits .
“ Small businesses are facing unprecedented challenges caused by COVID-19 and the resulting lockdowns enacted by state and local governments , ” the authors of the letter , including Guthrie and Norman , wrote .
“ There could not be a worse time for the federal government to create disincentives for returning to work.
” Norman voted for the CARES Act but against this month ’ s COVID relief bill .
Norman ’ s communications director , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an email : “ Surely it can not be lost on you that a Member of Congress could be very much in favor of targeted , specific COVID relief to help those who desperately need it , while opposed to recklessly spending hundreds of billions of dollars elsewhere when our nation is over $ 27 trillion in the hole.
” Sludge provided links that show Norman ’ s three affiliated companies received more than $ 300,000 in PPP loans , according to Accountable.US and the congressman ’ s financial disclosures .
Asked why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ member of Congress whose net worth is more than $ 43 million qualified as “ targeted , specific COVID relief , ” Livingston did not respond .
PPP loans are mostly forgivable and likely won ’ t ever have to be paid back .
That ’ s because the loan forgiveness rules only required businesses to use 75 percent of the money for payroll costs and do not require them to prove that they lost income .
Monday night ’ s relief package requires second-time loan recipients to prove they lost up to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forgiven .
Whether Guthrie ’ s and Norman ’ s companies even needed the loans — or whether any of the nonprofits or companies tied to members of both parties needed them , for that matter — is one of the vexing and unanswered questions plaguing the Paycheck Protection Program .
Many small , struggling businesses were left out in the cold for a variety of technical or access reasons , and closed for good .
Many others received much-needed loans that saved them or helped them retain their workers .
Scores of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to some $ 54 million in PPP and EIDL loans to nonprofits , think tanks and policy institutes , higher education institutions and congressional caucus organizations .
One of the Democrats associated with the largest amount of loans among members of his party is Bennie Thompson , of Mississippi .
The longest-serving Black representative of the state , Thompson is a board member and trustee , respectively , of the Housing Assistance Council , a nonprofit that helps with housing in rural communities , and Tougaloo College , a Black liberal arts college @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the two entities received $ 2,874,000 in PPP and EIDL loans .
This article has been updated to add that Nita Lowey ’ s husband is chairman emeritus at Lowey Dannenberg P.C .
This report and database were produced with support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism .
Disclosure : Both authors of this story received PPP loans .

This article was produced by Sludge , an independent, ad-free investigative news site covering money in politics. Click here to support Sludge.
As members of Congress pat themselves on the back for passing a new coronavirus relief package after a nine-month impasse, Americans can count on less money in the form of stimulus checks and unemployment insurance than they did in the spring, when Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) — and took advantage of it themselves.
A Sludge analysis of COVID bailout data found that companies at which 28 members of Congress or their spouses hold positions received at least $27 million in loans likely to be forgiven under the CARES Act.
The revelation that so many members of Congress personally benefited from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) authorized by the CARES Act comes as Congress must consider how to address President Trump’s Tuesday night demand that all Americans be given $2,000 stimulus checks, after their Monday night bill cut in half unemployment insurance and stimulus checks for Americans compared to an earlier House proposal. President Trump criticized the bill but fell short of saying he’ll veto it; Congress appears to have enough votes to override a veto. On Thursday morning, House Republicans blocked Democrats’ attempt to increase stimulus check payments from $600 to $2,000.
Sludge found that 18 congressional Republicans and one Libertarian have received $21.7 million for 38 businesses with which they are associated. Nine Democrats received $6.1 million for 11 of their own businesses. An additional roughly $54 million went to nonprofits, think tanks and policy institutes, congressional caucuses, and higher education institutions tied to members of both parties.
While the majority of Democrats and Republicans voted to pass Monday’s COVID relief package, two Democrats and 57 Republicans voted against it. Among the Republicans who voted to not fund a second round of PPP, among other provisions, are 10 who received $15.3 million in PPP loans from the CARES Act.
“The opportunities for corruption and scandal are particularly ripe when the business interests of members of Congress and other government officials go to the trough for public funds from programs they helped design,” said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, a non-partisan government watchdog. “Like the larger business that…reaped the greatest rewards from the PPP program, government officials themselves have inside knowledge of how the application process works and who to contact for the public assistance. Even if no deliberate favoritism is involved, the optics of potential self-dealing alone undermines public confidence in these programs.”
Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) was one of the members who voted nay on Monday night. He also benefited from PPP funding when his family’s business received $4.3 million in loans that most likely will not have to be repaid.
Along with many other Republicans, Guthrie had decried stimulus spending aimed at ordinary workers and individuals who do not earn six digit salaries. In July, Guthrie, PPP recipient Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and 33 other GOP representatives wrote to President Trump and implored him to stop extended unemployment benefits from reaching jobless Americans in the spring and summer. Extending the additional $600 in weekly unemployment checks would “only slow our economic recovery,” the lawmakers wrote.
It is not illegal or against House and Senate ethics rules for members to hold positions outside their duties in Congress — and many do, while simultaneously crafting legislation that will help those companies, Sludge found in July.
While the loans to lawmakers certainly are helpful for their businesses, some of the biggest financial assistance from the CARES Act likely comes in the form of tax relief for so-called “pass through” business entities, such as LLCs. It is common for members of Congress to be affiliated with or invested in such companies, Sludge’s analysis shows. Provisions in the CARES Act allow for such companies to receive an immediate refund on losses from prior years and other lucrative tax deductions that amount to a windfall. The biggest winners will be “the roughly 43,000 taxpayers with $1 million or more in annual income [that] will reap 82 percent of the benefits and get an average tax cut of more than $1.6 million,” according to tax expert Steve Rosenthal, writing in Forbes.
Congress could have targeted relief to the small businesses who need it most rather than millionaires and large businesses, Rosenthal argued. Of all the private companies members of Congress are associated with, the majority — 205 of 347 — are LLCs, according to Sludge’s analysis.
Wealthiest Members and Their Loans
Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), net worth $77 million, received a $135,800 loan for his Geniecast, LLC.
Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), net worth $73.9 million and the fourth-richest member of Congress, received $2.8 million in loans for four of his 27 companies.
Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), net worth $60.9 million, received a loan of $1,070,000 for his KTAK Corporation. Hern, who owns 97 percent of the company, estimated its value at between $5 and $25 million last year.
Norman, net worth $43.4 million, received $306,520 for four of his 20 companies.
Mitch McConnell and wife Elaine Chao, with a combined net worth of $34.4 million, are tied to a loan for the Chao-family owned Foremost Maritime Inc. of $417,700.
Roger Williams (R-Texas), net worth $27.7, received $1,430,000 for his JRW Corporation. Last year, he valued the company at more than $50 million.
Greg Pence, net worth $12.6 million, received a loan of $79,441 for his Pence Group, LLC, which he valued on his financial disclosure as worth between $5 and $25 million.
T.J. Cox (D-Calif.), net worth $11.8 million, received $609,825 for two of his 26 businesses.
Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), net worth $10.9 million, is tied to a loan of $1,100,000.00 that went to a law firm where her husband is chairman emeritus, Lowey Dannenberg P.C.
Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), net worth $10.4 million, received $974,100 for four of his car dealerships.
Ralph Abraham (R-La.), net worth $4.8 million, received loans of $38,300 for two of his four companies.
Earl Blumenaeur (D-Ore.), net worth $4.5 million, received $432,734 for his two companies.
Vicki Hartzler (R-Mo.), net worth $3.8 million, is tied to $451,200 for her husband’s Heartland Tractor Company, which she valued at between $1 and $5 million and from which he claimed as much as $1 million in income last year.
Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), net worth $3.7 million, received $988,700 for his two family plumbing businesses.
Just as the majority of PPP money went to large companies and not the mom-and-pop small businesses the funds were intended for, Congress’ PPP haul went to some of its richest members. Fourteen members who rank in the top 100 wealthiest in Congress, with a combined net worth of $354.7 million, received or are tied to entities that received $11.4 millions in loans. Among them are car dealerships owned by Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), which have been open since March as Florida pursued an aggressive re-opening strategy. The 12th-richest member of Congress, Roger Williams (R-Texas), received more than $1 million for a company he values at more than $50 million and where he is the sole director and president, according to his annual financial disclosure. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) received more than $1 million for the five McDonald’s restaurants he owns a 97 percent stake in, even though dine-in service resumed in May. But these wealthy members who received PPP money don’t make up the largest loans granted to lawmakers.
Largest Loan Recipients
Carol Miller (R-W.V.) is the legal secretary of four of five of her husband’s car dealerships, which received loans totaling $3.1 million.
Two wineries and two farms tied to Devin Nunes (R-CA) received a total $2.95 million in bailout money.
Buchanan’s car dealership loans topping $2.8 million.
Businesses owned by T.J. Cox received more than $600,000 in PPP and EIDL loans.
A hospitality company owned by Ed Case (D-HI) received $1.9 million thanks to the CARES Act. Two economic development organizations with which he is associated received a combined $670,030.
Markwayne Mullin’s $988,700 in loans.
Mike Kelly’s $974,100 in loans for his car dealerships. (Unlike his auto dealer colleagues in West Virginia and Florida, Pennsylvania did not deem the businesses essential and only allowed car sales online.)
Ralph Norman’s hospitality and real estate companies took in a combined $306,520 in loans.
Eight Republicans and two Democrats comprise the ten highest loan amounts tied to or received by individual members. Atop the list is Carol Miller (R-W.V.), the legal secretary for her husband’s car dealerships, which received more than $3.1 million in loans despite the fact that auto dealers were deemed essential businesses by Gov. Jim Justice in March. Two wineries and two farms tied to Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) received a total $2.95 million in bailout money.
The biggest single loan to a member’s private company went to Trace Die Cast Inc., a family-run auto parts manufacturing operation based in Bowling Spring where Guthrie is a board member.
“Americans should never have to wonder how their elected officials are influenced by their personal businesses,” said Jordan Libowitz of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). “Unfortunately, we now have to question that as a default.”
Hundreds of members of Congress hold positions at private companies, which they’re allowed to do under federal law and House and Senate ethics rules. (Members are barred from holding positions at publicly-traded companies.) Those positions are listed on their annual financial disclosures, which provide insight into their finances and business interests. Sludge combed all 535 members of Congress’ most recent annual disclosures and compiled positions held at private companies and nonprofits. Once those positions were identified, Sludge entered the entities into a database created by Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog group that compiled PPP and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) data obtained from the Small Business Administration. Sludge used that data to find previously unreported loans, combining it with reports about wealthy members bailing out their or their spouse’s companies with COVID relief funds.
The result is the first publicly-searchable database of COVID bailout money for members of Congress. Sludge is making this one-of-a-kind database available to the public to promote transparency about the loans, which have been scrutinized from the beginning as mostly benefiting wealthy Americans.
Guthrie counts among those Americans. Worth an estimated $7.6 million, the Kentucky Republican cracks the top 40 richest members of Congress and maintains a position at Trace Die Cast. Listing himself as a board member of the company on his financial disclosure, Guthrie notes that the position is “uncompensated” as many members of Congress do for their own positions with private companies — House and Senate ethics rules prevent them from being paid for positions held outside their duties as lawmakers. Still, his ownership stake is worth between $500,001 and $1 million, according to his financial disclosure, and he has an additional up to $5 million invested in the company through a family trust.
The PPP loans have been credited for injecting billions of dollars into the economy quickly but criticized for a scattershot approach that has benefited mostly wealthy, well-connected companies. No one has suggested that members of Congress are breaking the law by taking advantage of the Small Business Administration loans, but it also isn’t known whether entities tied to members of Congress received special treatment, as many large and well-connected businesses apparently did.
At least five Republicans were the recipients of campaign contributions from individuals and PACs affiliated with the financial institutions that approved their companies’ PPP loans. Guthrie has received $3,000 since 2008 from Gary Broady, director of Franklin Bank. Guthrie’s car part business’ $4.37 million PPP loan was approved by Franklin Bank. Kevin Hern has received $5,400 in contributions since 2017 from Frank X Henke, president & CEO at American Bank & Trust Co, which approved a $1.07 million loan to Hern’s KTAK Corporation, a S corporation in the food and beverage industry. Vicky Hartzler has received $1,500 from Hawthorn Bank CEO and President David Turner. Hawthorn Bank approved Hartzler Farm’s $26,900 PPP loan. Finally, Vern Buchanan has taken in $5,000 from the PAC of BMO Harris Bank since 2007. BMO Harris Bank approved $2.23 million in PPP funds for Buchanan’s Sarasota 500 LLC and $384,000 for his Nissan of Elizabeth City car dealership.
Ten Republicans who received loans for their private companies voted against the TRUTH Act, which would have required loan recipients to be publicly identified by the SBA — Ralph Norman, Brett Guthrie, Vicki Hartzler, Kevin Hern, Rick Allen, Greg Pence, Devin Nunes, Markwayne Mullin, Roger Williams, and Mike Kelly. An 11th Republican recipient of COVID bailout money, Vern Buchanan, did not vote.
“It’s no surprise that there are members of Congress who benefited from PPP loans and would not want their constituents to know about it,” CREW’s Libowitz said.
The number of loans and members who benefited speaks to the private entanglements and financial conflicts of interest that have long dogged Congress. While Congress was able to secure loans for their own companies and nonprofits, Black- and minority-owned businesses have struggled to get access to the money.
The discovery of the substantial loans obtained by members of Congress comes as lawmakers passed only the second package with direct relief for many Americans since the pandemic began. Included in that package is an additional $284 billion in PPP funding but significantly reduced stimulus checks and unemployment benefits compared to the first round of COVID relief. Additionally, some members, including Guthrie and Norman, have been pushing for Congress to make a surplus of $130 billion in PPP money that was left behind from the spring bailout round available to businesses for a second loan application.
Guthrie and Norman were also among 37 Republicans who wrote to President Trump in July, urging him to halt extended unemployment benefits for millions of out-of-work Americans. The extra $600 that unemployed Americans received each week under the CARES Act caused some workers to earn more money from unemployment than when they had been employed, a common complaint among Republican politicians about the bill’s extended unemployment benefits.
“Small businesses are facing unprecedented challenges caused by COVID-19 and the resulting lockdowns enacted by state and local governments,” the authors of the letter, including Guthrie and Norman, wrote. “There could not be a worse time for the federal government to create disincentives for returning to work.”
Norman voted for the CARES Act but against this month’s COVID relief bill. Norman’s communications director, Austin Livingston, responded to Sludge in an email: “Surely it cannot be lost on you that a Member of Congress could be very much in favor of targeted, specific COVID relief to help those who desperately need it, while opposed to recklessly spending hundreds of billions of dollars elsewhere when our nation is over $27 trillion in the hole.”
Sludge provided links that show Norman’s three affiliated companies received more than $300,000 in PPP loans, according to Accountable.US and the congressman’s financial disclosures. Asked why providing loans to companies associated with a member of Congress whose net worth is more than $43 million qualified as “targeted, specific COVID relief,” Livingston did not respond.
PPP loans are mostly forgivable and likely won’t ever have to be paid back. That’s because the loan forgiveness rules only required businesses to use 75 percent of the money for payroll costs and do not require them to prove that they lost income. Monday night’s relief package requires second-time loan recipients to prove they lost up to 25 percent business to have their loans forgiven.
Whether Guthrie’s and Norman’s companies even needed the loans — or whether any of the nonprofits or companies tied to members of both parties needed them, for that matter — is one of the vexing and unanswered questions plaguing the Paycheck Protection Program. Many small, struggling businesses were left out in the cold for a variety of technical or access reasons, and closed for good. Many others received much-needed loans that saved them or helped them retain their workers.
Scores of Democrats and some Republicans are also tied to some $54 million in PPP and EIDL loans to nonprofits, think tanks and policy institutes, higher education institutions and congressional caucus organizations.
One of the Democrats associated with the largest amount of loans among members of his party is Bennie Thompson, of Mississippi. The longest-serving Black representative of the state, Thompson is a board member and trustee, respectively, of the Housing Assistance Council, a nonprofit that helps with housing in rural communities, and Tougaloo College, a Black liberal arts college in his home state. Combined, the two entities received $2,874,000 in PPP and EIDL loans.
This article has been updated to add that Nita Lowey’s husband is chairman emeritus at Lowey Dannenberg P.C.
This report and database were produced with support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
Disclosure: Both authors of this story received PPP loans.
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