Liberty Counsel Rebuts Fake News About Paycheck Protection Program

ORLANDO, FL -- Online news sources and blogs are republishing unsourced and fabricated fake news regarding Liberty Counsel in an article about nonprofit organizations receiving loans in the Paycheck Protection Program. Some of the false information appears to have originated in a July 8 article written for Creative Loafing at cltampa.com, by its digital editor Colin Wolf, who wrote that Liberty Counsel had received PPP funds but “reportedly retained no jobs.” Instead of verifying the information in Creative Loafing, Roger Sollengerger, staff writer for Salon.com, published an article on July 10 claiming that Liberty Counsel received “between $350,000 and $1 million, reportedly retaining no jobs.” When in fact, Liberty Counsel has numerous employees in three offices and retained 100 percent of its staff members.

The Salon.com article added another fabrication, falsely claiming that Liberty Counsel has no income or employees. The article links to Liberty Counsel’s IRS Form 990-T for 2018, which only reports taxable business income. However, the form does not report nontaxable income. The writer and editor at Salon.com apparently cannot read the plain language of the form. The original draft of the Paycheck Protection Program did not include relief for any nonprofit organizations. Liberty Counsel raised this oversite to members of Congress and advocated for the inclusion of nonprofit organizations so that charity workers would not face layoffs during the economic uncertainty. As a result, nonprofits were included in the legislation and became eligible for loans on an equal basis with small businesses. Once the SBA opened the application process, Liberty Counsel presented an online seminar and posted materials to advise churches and nonprofits on the application process. Liberty Counsel also conducted a free online training in which a well-known leftist media monitoring organization was one of many groups in attendance. Many workers are now benefiting from the efforts that Liberty Counsel took on behalf of both religious and secular nonprofit organizations. Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Liberty Counsel advocated for the inclusion of nonprofits in the Paycheck Protection Program. In doing so, we did not seek to limit the loans to only organizations with which we agree. Many nonprofit organizations covering a wide spectrum of ideological views have benefited from Liberty Counsel’s efforts. Yet, narrowminded media sources and bloggers now complain against certain groups with which they disagree. How pitiful! Instead of printing fake news these media sources ought to thank Liberty Counsel for its efforts to help all nonprofits.”