- The largest recipient of aid from the Paycheck Protection Program, a hotel conglomerate controlled by Trump campaign donor who hired Trump fundraisers to lobby Trump's Treasury Department, said Saturday that it has no plans to return the money.
- The companies are owned by Monty Bennett, a Dallas billionaire who gave $50,000 to Trump's fundraising committee last month.
- The Treasury Department issued a new rule Thursday that publicly traded companies like Bennett's are "unlikely" to meet the program's requirements and giving a deadline of May 7 to pay the money back or prove that they had no other options.
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A conglomerate controlled by Dallas billionaire Monty Bennett, whose hotel chain is the single largest recipient of funds from the small business bailout program, announced Saturday that it doesn't plan on returning the money to the government despite new rules from the Treasury department making clear that the loans were intended for smaller businesses.
"We plan to keep all funds received under the PPP, which were provided as a result of the application process and other specific requirements established for our industry by Congress," Bennett's company, Ashford Hospitality Trust, wrote in a statement posted to its website Saturday afternoon. "Rules established by the Small Business Administration require companies like ours to determine by May 7 whether we still qualify for the PPP funds. Any funds for which we are determined to be not qualified will be returned according to the requirements of the program."
Bennett, a prolific donor to President Donald Trump and Republicans, grabbed headlines after it was reported his hotel conglomerate, which owns 130 hotels across the country, had won at least than $58 million in emergency loans. Business Insider reported Thursday that Bennett had hired a pair of Trump fundraisers, Jeff Miller and Roy Bailey, to lobby the Treasury Department for the relief, and that he had recently donated $50,000 to Trump's fundraising committee.
In total, Ashford Hospitality Trust and its affiliates have applied for $126 million from the Paycheck Protection Program, the statement said.
A national backlash built this week over revelations that large operations like Ashford, Shake Shack, and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse had secured the largest amounts from a fund originally created to save small businesses. Last week, Congress rushed through a new infusion of cash for the fund, which had been almost immediately depleted amid the economic earthquake caused by COVID-19.
In response to the outcry, the Treasury Department issued new rules Thursday mandating that any loan recipients certify in good faith that they had no other recourse than to seek the PPP funds. The guidance said "it is unlikely that a public company with substantial market value and access to capital markets" would meet that standard, and gave companies who received loans but didn't need them a deadline of May 7 to pay back the money.
A spokesman for Bennett did not immediately return requests for comment Saturday.
The statement from Ashford is the company's first comment since the Business Insider reported on Bennett's political connections to the president. A spokesman for the Treasury Department did not immediately return a request for comment Saturday. A spokeswoman for the Small Business Administration did not immediately return a request for comment.
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