GOP Lawmakers Demand White House Reveal Which Staffers Are Eligible for Student-Loan ‘Forgiveness’

Republican Representatives James Comer of Kentucky and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina on Thursday demanded information from the White House about whether any administration officials who helped craft President Biden’s student-loan “forgiveness” order will benefit from the relief.

“We write to request documents and information to determine whether Biden Administration officials have a conflict of interest in advocating for and enacting this massive government handout in which they or their family members would receive a financial benefit at the expense of American taxpayers,” the pair wrote in a letter to White House counsel Stuart Delery.

Comer, who is the ranking Republican on the Oversight and Reform Committee, and Foxx, the top Republican member of the Education and Labor panel, said that Biden’s executive order does not exclude administration employees and that “raises concerns that political appointees with student loans will financially benefit from a policy they crafted.”

Biden plans to “forgive” up to $10,000 in federal student debt for those making under $125,000 annually and households making under $250,000, as well as relieving $20,000 in debt for Pell grant recipients. The executive action transfers the cost of the loans to the American public.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday she had not seen the letter and declined to say whether the administration believes aides with student loan debt are biased on the issue.

Jean-Pierre said 90 percent of the “forgiveness” will go to people making $75,000 or less.

Many White House staffers will likely be eligible for the student loan “cancelation.”

A White House report that detailed the pay of more than 470 staffers in July showed that roughly half of current White House employees make $90,000 or less per year, with the other half making more than $100,000. More than 300 staffers on the list earn less than the $125,000 threshold. 

It is not clear how many White House staffers have student-loan balances. One-in-five White House aides required to file a 2021 financial disclosure reported having student loans, according to disclosures reviewed by Bloomberg News. However, only senior or well-paid staffers have to file the disclosures, the report notes.

At least 30 senior White House staffers have student-loan balances, according to the report. However, the staffers mentioned by name in the report — press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and deputy director of the National Economic Council Bharat Ramamurti — make a yearly salary that exceeds the $125,000 cut off.

The 30 senior staffers collectively owe as much as $4.7 million, according to the report.

Comer and Foxx on Thursday requested a list of all White House staffers who worked on the order and whether they have student debt that would be “forgiven.”

The Office of Government Ethics has reportedly told the lawmakers that no White House official sought an ethics waiver to work on “student loan bailout proposals.” 

Foxx and Comer previously wrote a letter to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics last year suggesting that staffers working on the loan forgiveness plan should be investigated to see if they or their family members would benefit personally from loan cancellation.

“Public officials should never use their office to unjustly enrich themselves, and such behavior would directly violate the Ethics Pledge that President Biden implemented for all political appointees,” the lawmakers wrote.

Washington, D.C., residents have more outstanding student-loan debt than residents of any other city in the country, according to a 2021 report from the business insurance research company AdvisorSmith, which found that the average D.C. borrower has $54,982 in unpaid student-loan debt and 16 percent of D.C. residents had unpaid student-loan debt.