Bush paid her husband, Cortney Merritts, more than $150,000 in campaign funds to work as her ‘bodyguard’ Cori Bush, Cortney Merritts (X)
Former left-wing congresswoman Cori Bush’s husband was charged on Thursday with defrauding the federal government to illegally collect tens of thousands of dollars in loans under COVID-era small business relief programs.
Cortney Merritts, who secretly married Bush in 2023, falsified details about his purported businesses in order to obtain more than $20,000 in loans from the Small Business Administration in 2020 and 2021 under the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, the Department of Justice said in a statement.
Bush represented St. Louis before suffering a primary loss last year that she blamed on the Jews. She was a member of the far-left “Squad” that includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.). She refused to call Hamas a terrorist group and was one of two House members to vote against a resolution to ban Hamas terrorists from entering the United States.
The indictment comes roughly one year after the DOJ launched an investigation into Bush over a separate ordeal: Bush’s campaign payments to Merritts.