OAN Staff James Meyers
8:22 AM – Friday, March 21, 2025
The husband of former far-left Representative Cori Bush was slapped with federal charges this week alleging that he committed wire fraud related to the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection and Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs.
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Cortney Merritts, faces two counts of wire fraud for allegedly filing fraudulent applications in 2020 and 2021 with the United States Small Business Administration.
The applications allowed him to collect, and never repay, government funds from the pandemic-era Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
Bush’s (D-Mo.) husband 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 made $32,000 in gross revenue the previous year, according to the indictment.
Just a 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 10 people and garnered $53,000 in revenue.
Additionally, one July 2020 application for a loan was rejected because it was nearly identical to one he submitted previously, prosecutors said.
Merritts was then indicted a year after the Justice Department opened an investigation into his wife, over campaign payments to him.
According to the Washington Post, an attorney for Merritts said that he will plead not guilty.
“Mr. Merritts intends to plead not guilty to the charges,” Merritts’ lawyer, Justin Gelfand of Margulis Gelfand DiRuzzo & Lambson, said in a statement. “As with any indictment, this is only the government’s version of the story. We look forward to litigating this case in federal court in Washington, D.C.”
Meanwhile, the former “Squad” congresswoman lost her Missouri 1st District seat in the 2024 election, and is not accused of any wrongdoing in the indictment.
In 2023, Bush was hit with a Federal Election Commission (FEC) and congressional ethics complaint over money her campaign paid Merritt’s to provide security, despite not having the required license.
Bush allegedly “used campaign funds for personal use” when she shelled out $60,000 in 2022 for the services of Merritts, whom Bush later married in February 2023, according to the nonpartisan Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT).
Furthermore, the Bush campaign was paying Merritts for security during that same time period. It was spending over $225,000 on a St. Louis-based firm called PEACE Security and $50,000 on another security guard named Nathaniel Davis, Federal Election Commission records show.
Additionally, Bush was investigated last year by the Justice Department (DOJ) over her use of funds intended for Congress and candidates to spend on private security.
The status of the investigation is unknown and the ex-congresswoman has not been charged.
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