Former leaders of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have rejected allegations from a whistleblower that the Biden administration secretly discriminated against white farmers in loan forgiveness programmes. The whistleblower, a USDA employee, told NewsNation that the agency profiled farmers and only forgave loans of minority borrowers under the American Rescue Plan Act.
The whistleblower claimed the policy was intended to 'pay off anyone who wasn't a white male's loan' and that officials tried to keep it 'hushed because of the obvious implications of race-based loan forgiveness.' The American Rescue Plan Act allowed the government to pay up to 120 per cent of the outstanding debt of 'each socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher,' defined as various minorities.
Scott Marlow, who led implementation of the subsequent Inflation Reduction Act Section 22006, described the whistleblower's claims as 'absurd' and 'inflated.' He told DailyMail.com that the original programme was approved by Congress and followed by the USDA before being ruled unconstitutional. After the ruling, the Biden administration sent an email to minority farmers about the new act, which provided $3.1 billion in relief.
White farmer James Dunlap of Oregon, who works two additional jobs to keep his farm afloat, told NewsNation he did not qualify under the first act and only learned of the second through a friend. He was among those who sued the administration, claiming the policy was race-based and unconstitutional. A federal judge ruled that white farmers had been 'constitutionally harmed' by the original legislation.
Marlow denied that USDA workers instructed minority farmers to stop paying their loans, as alleged by the whistleblower. He stated that white farmers were always able to apply for loan relief at local USDA offices and that 68 per cent of recipients under Section 22006 self-identified as White or White and Other Races. He added that it would have been impossible to exclude white farmers from the mailing list.
