If you thought Cori Bush, former congresswoman from Missouri, was going to fade away after losing her primary, you were the only one. But even she probably wasn’t prepared for the DOJ to indict her husband.

After getting thoroughly trounced last August, Cori Bush went on to blame AIPAC (meaning, the Jews) for her election loss. Which makes it only natural that when she and fellow Squad loser Jamaal Bowman, former Congressional fire alarm expert, decided to launch a brand new podcast, their first episode was all about the evils of AIPAC and the way the “pro-Israel lobby” makes politicians do their bidding. Honestly, could these two anti-Semites be any more predictable?

It’s been about a week since the podcast was released, and as of this post, it hasn’t yet cracked 60,000 views. So, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman are doing comparable traffic with Michelle Obama’s podcast – which is not a compliment. Regardless, the “Bowman and Bush” podcast should be seen as group therapy for hard left anti-Semites who found themselves primaried out of Congress.

And Cori Bush is going to be needing some more therapy. The news broke Thursday evening that her husband, Cortney Merritts, who was hired as her “personal security” at some point in 2021, began paying directly from her campaign in 2022, and married in February 2023, is now under indictment by the Department of Justice for COVID-related wire fraud.

Cortney Merritts, 46, of St. Louis, Missouri, was charged today by federal indictment with two counts of wire fraud for allegedly filing fraudulent applications with the Small Business Administration in 2020 and 2021 that allowed him to collect more than $20,000 in government funds under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

According to the indictment, on July 7, 2020, Merritts received an $8,500 EIDL loan from the SBA for a moving business he operated that he called Vetted Couriers. In the application he submitted for Vetted Couriers, Merritts certified that his business had six employees and had generated $32,000 in gross revenue between January 30, 2019 and January 30, 2020.

On July 8, 2020, Merritts submitted another application to the SBA for an EIDL loan in the name of a sole proprietorship he called “Cortney Merritts.” In this EIDL application, Merritts fraudulently claimed to have a business that employed ten people and generated $53,000 in gross revenue between January 30, 2019 and January 30, 2020. In addition to an EIDL loan, Merritts also requested an EIDL advance of up to $10,000 based on his false claim that he had 10 employees. The SBA rejected Merritts’ attempt to obtain additional EIDL funds after determining that his July 2020 application was nearly identical to the prior one he submitted.

The indictment further alleges that on April 22, 2021, Merritts applied for a PPP loan in the name of a sole proprietorship he called “Cortney Merritts.” Merritts fraudulently claimed in this application that he had created this business in 2020 and that it had generated $128,000 in gross income that year. Based on Merritts’ representations about his gross income, Merritts received a $20,832 PPP loan. Merritts used the proceeds for his personal benefit and enjoyment. In July 2022, Merritts submitted a loan forgiveness application in which he falsely claimed that this business had 10 employees at the time of the PPP loan, and that he spent the $20,832 on payroll costs. Based on Merritts’ alleged fraudulent representations, the SBA forgave the PPP loan in the amount of $20,832 and the $254.03 in interest.

The indictment does not mention Merritts’ connection to Cori Bush, which, since these alleged fraudulent actions occurred before they were legally married, does not implicate her. However, Cori Bush is still under investigation by the DOJ herself for – wait for it – paying her husband out of her campaign funds for his “security” work.

Cori Bush's Husband Indicted for Wire Fraud, Allegedly Submitted False Applications To Obtain COVID Relief Funds — Bush paid her husband, Cortney Merritts, more than $150,000 in campaign funds to work as her 'bodyguard' https://t.co/ZgBpLkAL2N

— Adam Kredo (@Kredo0) March 20, 2025

She’s already managed to skate on the ethics complaint regarding that payment, likely because when it was dismissed, she had already been primaried out.

Bush had come under fire for using campaign money to hire her husband, Merritts, as her security guard. But the Office of Congressional Ethics dismissed a complaint filed against Bush last fall alleging that her campaign’s employment of Merritts was a violation of federal election law. Bush paid Merritts $60,000 in 2022 and $42,500 in 2023, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The Washington Post reported in 2024 that the Justice Department was investigating Bush for allegedly misusing money intended for members of Congress and candidates to spend on private security. The scope of the investigation and allegations of wrongdoing were not publicly known. The investigation has not resulted in any charges.

Bush addressed the allegations related to her employment of her husband in a statement at the time, emphasizing her need to provide her own security and calling criticism of her use of campaign funds for that purpose “frivolous.”

I’m going to correct the Washington Post – the investigation has not resulted in any charges against Cori Bush. How much does one want to bet that Bush paying her husband out of her campaign funds, and being under DOJ investigation (by the Biden DOJ, no less) led directly to the discovery of the COVID loans that Merritts allegedly got, and then had forgiven? And there’s still the chance that the DOJ could charge Cori Bush herself. It’s just that Cortney Merritts made his alleged fraud much easier to see, and therefore, easier to charge. This kind of COVID-era financial wastefulness and fraud is exactly why people are still willing to see what DOGE can do. How many stories of wire fraud and people misusing these PPP loans have we seen over the years? Too many. Merritts might be small potatoes compared to some of the big swindles, but it’s still an indictment for wire fraud.

I can’t wait for Cori Bush to try and explain during her next podcast episode how AIPAC made her husband take the PPP loans. That’s the kind of intellectual rigor that we’ve come to expect from the former congresswoman.

Featured image: Cori Bush in 2021 by Miki Jourdan on Flickr, cropped, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0