Dallas City Wire

Hotel magnate Monty Bennett is a strong supporter of President Donald Trump. 

Bennett also has been the subject of a great deal of media attention and attacks from prominent Democrats for applying for, and briefly receiving, money from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Are those two facts related?

“Well they didn't help, that’s for sure,” Bennett told Dallas City Wire. “We lawfully applied for PPP funds that were meant for businesses like ours to help save some of the 11,000 employees we had to let go or furlough, and what we received in return was no money, a misguided media rebuke, social-justice warriors sending death threats, and an investigation launched by the federal government. We desperately needed the funds to save as many of our employees as we could. Because the government changed the rules on us after we received the funds, though, we had to give the funds back. Our employees are the ones suffering.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) | File photo

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden went on Twitter this spring to single Bennett out personally, and demand he return the funds so that the government “can give it to the small businesses that need it.” 

Bennett said he understands why that happened.

“Just politics I suppose, based on false claims that Congress intended PPP funds only for small businesses when, in fact, they wrote the legislation to specifically include aid for hotels and other hospitality businesses,” he said.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) also went on Twitter to demand an “investigation” into the PPP loan. 

“A good question for Sen. Schumer [is], who got his investigation?” Bennett said. “The Trump administration said that such politically motivated investigations were going to stop, but so far that’s not the case.”

That includes a recent inquiry from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bennett has managed public companies for 17 years, and that had never happened before.

“Never,” he said. “It makes me wonder if the federal agencies that target businesses and the politicians who egg them on are intentionally trying to prevent our employees from coming back to work.”

He wonders about that — but he's convinced that being a supporter of Donald Trump ultimately led to the investigations.

“Yes,” Bennett said. “I believe that we were retaliated against by those in the Trump administration who are sympathetic to Sen. Schumer’s campaign against us.”

Bennett’s companies — Ashford Inc., a management firm; Ashford Hospitality Trust, a real estate investment trust (REIT) that controls more than 100 hotels in the United States; and Braemar Hotels & Resorts Inc., a REIT focused on investing in luxury hotels and resorts in the Caribbean — applied for $126 million from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. He says that 75% of the money would have gone to his 13,000 employees, since this spring 90% of his workers were laid off or furloughed. His companies received around $69 million in forgivable loans, less than 2% of the initial $350 billion in federal funds to aid struggling companies.

But there was a near-immediate response.

Biden attacked him on Twitter on May 2.

“When I say Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in modern American history, this is what I'm talking about,” Biden wrote, linking to an April 23 Daily Beast story. “Monty Bennett should return the tens of millions of dollars he received, and we should give it to the small businesses that need it.”

Senate Democratic Leader Schumer wrote a letter to the SBA demanding an investigation of the loans, and the New York Times spotlighted Bennett in an article about the PPP program. His compensation also was criticized, although he later eliminated his salary and cut his dividends in half during the crisis.

Bennett, after at first saying he would keep the PPP money, returned it. It was, he said, the price he paid for being a Trump supporter, even as his businesses suffered through the worst period in the industry’s history.

Through all of this, no allegations of wrongdoing have surfaced.

“Of course not,” Bennett said.

He’s not naive. He understands such investigations happen, especially for high-profile businesses and their owners.

“They're certainly not uncommon,” Bennett said. “Just about every public company you've ever heard of has gone through them at one time or another. But my question is why now? Why during a time that the hotel industry is in three times worse shape than during the horrific 2008 financial crisis?”

It’s also worth noting that a lot of well-known firms are under a great deal of scrutiny now.

“Such as Netflix, Facebook, Microsoft, AIG, Bank of America, Prudential, Morgan Stanley, etc.,” Bennett said.