As President Donald Trump complains about “pork” in the current COVID-19 relief package, The Wall Street Journal reports that the last time around, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) helped manipulate the aid program to get $35 million for Texas billionaire fracking brothers who are major Cruz contributors.
Dan and Farris Wilks collected the windfall even though their businesses were busy buying stakes in six other fracking companies, according to corporate records, the Journal reported.
The Wilks brothers lobbied Cruz when it appeared that gas and oil operations would be cut out of the government-backed loans of the Mainstreet Lending Program in the last COVID-19 economic stimulus package last spring, according to the newspaper.
Cruz in turn helped convince the Trump administration and the Federal Reserve to change the rules for pandemic loans to include the operations, the Journal reported. The government quickly changed the rules, and the Wilks brothers obtained the hefty $35 million loan for ProFac Holdings LLC, a supplier of pumping equipment and services, according to records.