Petaluma, Calif. -After winning its fourth federal lawsuit against the Small Business Administration (SBA), the American Small Business League (ASBL) predicts that the SBA will launch a damage control campaign to withhold the data and divert media attention from the documents. The ASBL believes the data will reveal that the Bush Administration diverted billions of dollars in federal contracts earmarked for small businesses to Fortune 500 firms and their subsidiaries during 2005 and 2006.

On May 19th, United States District Court Judge Marilyn H. Patel ordered the SBA to comply with the ASBL's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request within two weeks. In its request, the ASBL sought the specific names of all firms that had received federal small business contracts during 2005 and 2006.

ASBL President Lloyd Chapman predicts that the SBA will use some of the same tactics that it has used in the past to withhold the requested data and minimize the negative impact the information will have on the Bush Administration.

"This information will be very damaging to the credibility of SBA Administrator Steven Preston and the Bush Administration. Why else would they have gone to federal court to withhold what should be harmless figures? I believe this data will prove that the Bush Administration has lied to Congress and the public since 2001 and intentionally diverted billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 corporations," Chapman said. "I think they are going to use every trick in the book to withhold this data and divert media attention from the damaging nature of this information. I wouldn't be surprised if they appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit Court."

In the past, the SBA has attempted to explain the diversion of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms by claiming "computer glitches" and "miscoding" were responsible for the inflated statistics. SBA has used the "miscoding" explanation every year since 2002.

Chapman believes that the SBA may try to remove the names of obvious Fortune 500 firms and then significantly inflate contracting amounts to legitimate small businesses as a means of maintaining the previously reported small business contracting numbers. A small firm that actually received $100,000 in federal small business contracts would be reported as receiving $100,000,000. If the discrepancy is discovered, the SBA will claim "computer glitches" were responsible for the error.

Another damage control tactic the SBA has used when forced to release damaging information to the public is to release the documents late Friday afternoon as a means of reducing the probability that major media outlets will pick up the story.

Federal law does not require the SBA to release the information directly to the ASBL. In the past the SBA has tried to find a Bush Administration friendly media outlet and release the damaging information to them.

In 2004, the SBA lost another federal case to the ASBL under FOIA and was forced to release a damaging report that found fraud was prevalent in federal small business contracting programs. The SBA complied with the court order by releasing the damaging report to the Wall Street Journal with an embargoed press release. What appeared to be an objective story on the report was actually written largely by the SBA itself. That story made no mention of the fact that the SBA was forced to release the report after losing a federal lawsuit to the ASBL. (https://www.asbl.com/showmedia.php?id=47)

 
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