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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'

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.

Bush used her congressional campaign budget to pay for more than $812,000 on questionable private security services. She paid more than $150,000 to her husband.

Even after