President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will nominate businesswoman and former Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler to be administrator of the Small Business Administration.
Loeffler would be responsible for a federal agency that assists companies with everything from expansion efforts to disaster recovery. She was appointed to the Senate in 2020 and lost her bid to keep the seat later that year.
She was on the Senate Agriculture; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Veterans’ Affairs; and Joint Economic committees during her tenure.
“Small Businesses are the backbone of our Great Economy,” Trump said in a statement on the Truth Social platform. “Kelly will bring her experience in business and Washington to reduce red tape, and unleash opportunity for our Small Businesses to grow, innovate, and thrive. She will focus on ensuring that SBA is accountable to Taxpayers by cracking down on waste, fraud, and regulatory overreach.”
Trump praised Loeffler for her business background.
“Prior to her tenure in the U.S. Senate, Kelly built a 25 year career in financial services and technology,” Trump said. “Along with her amazing husband, Jeff, she helped build a Fortune 500 company from 100 employees to over 10,000, as Executive VP.”
Loeffler held marketing and operations roles at Toyota Motor Sales USA before moving into financial services, according to Loeffler’s profile in CQ Politics in America. The publication said she joined the Intercontinental Exchange in 2002, a firm founded by her future husband, Jeff Sprecher, in 2000. The couple married in 2004.
Loeffler, who grew up on a soybean and cattle farm in Illinois, is the director of Public Square, an online marketplace that says it’s for “businesses who respect traditional American values.”
During her short stint in Congress, Loeffler made headlines for selling stock on the same day White House officials briefed her and her Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee colleagues about the coronavirus.
The Justice Department scrutinized her stock trades, as well as similar actions by three of her colleagues. The stock market began plunging in late February 2020, after the Senate received briefings on the coming pandemic. In April 2020, Loeffler vowed to unload all her family’s individual securities. A month later, the Justice Department ended its probe.
Among the bills she introduced was one in late 2020 to provide economic assistance to small businesses impacted by COVID-19 through the designation of specified amounts for the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund and the establishment of a Small Business and Domestic Production Recovery Investment Facility. The bill would also have extended the requirement that the SBA subsidize certain loan payments. The legislation received no action.
She also sponsored a bill that would transfer responsibility from the Veterans Administration to the SBA for verifying that a small business concern is owned and controlled by a veteran or service-disabled veteran to determine eligibility for certain procurement programs. That bill also saw no action.
Loeffler was the first woman from Georgia in the Senate in nearly 100 years, according to CQ Politics in America. She was chosen by Gov. Brian Kemp to fill the seat of Sen. Johnny Isakson midway through the 116th Congress. Isakson left for health reasons.
Trump highlighted Loeffler’s political experience in Georgia.
“She and Jeff also helped me secure the Big Election Win in Georgia!” Trump wrote.
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