DSCC Statement on News Walker “Mocked” Businesses for Taking PPP While He Benefited From It

11Alive: Walker’s business interests took millions in PPP but laid off 90% of their employees

In response to new reporting from 11Alive revealing that Herschel Walker’s business interests took millions in PPP loans while laying off 90% of their employees – even though Walker “mocked businesses that took PPP money” – Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Spokesperson Amanda Sherman Baity issued the following statement:

“The real Herschel Walker is coming into focus: he’s a fraud with a record of shadowy, dishonest business practices – and while he got rich, Georgians lost their jobs. At every turn, Walker is showing Georgians that he isn’t who he claims to be — he’ll say and do anything to help himself.”

Read key points from 11Alive’s reporting here:

• U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker had business interests that took government bailout money during the early stages of the pandemic, records show. Yet, on Twitter, Walker has also ridiculed businesses that took such money.

• In April 2020, the government reported Sotherly got two PPP loans totaling more than $9.7 million while, at the same time, laying off 90% of its hotel staff, according to documents the company filed with the government. 

• Sotherly accepted the government’s help at a time when one of its board members was urging big companies to turn it away. That board member was Herschel Walker, now running for the U.S. Senate in Georgia.

• Just a few days before Sotherly got the PPP money, Walker on Twitter mocked “big companies (that) are giving back their PPP money…. Maybe they felt embarrassed (or) ashamed,” wrote Walker, before he launched his senate race.

• Sotherly has paid Walker $247,227 the last six years, according to stock disclosure statements filed with the government. 

• “Because of that lifeline, a lot of businesses were saved,” said Adam Harrell, who runs a marketing company in Atlanta that also took PPP money. “There’s was (a) level of hypocrisy shown when you criticize it and hey, you were part of a company. You serve on a board. You took the money. But instead of saving people’s jobs, you laid people off,” Harrell said.

• In April 2020, Walker told the Atlanta Business Chronicle he was “not relying on PPP or the government to save his chicken business,” according to the article’s headline. But a few weeks later, Walker’s company likewise benefited from two payments totaling $182,800 in PPP money, most of which the government has forgiven, according to a ProPublica tracking site. 

• Walker declined an interview request with 11Alive – something he has done consistently since he began his Senate campaign last year.

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