Update, October 10, 2026: We've obtained the signed letter, published by the Magnolia Tribune. 103 of the people who signed it are Republicans running this year who have a page on this site. They're listed by state below.
Chris Smith co-chairs the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus. On October 2, Fox News reported that he had opened a new front against Planned Parenthood.
Smith, a New Jersey Republican, and Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford led 128 Republican lawmakers in a letter asking the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general to review Planned Parenthood's federal funding and, "if appropriate, initiate an investigation." Smith's office posted the Fox News report announcing it.
The request casts a wide net. The lawmakers want the watchdog to comb through the HHS programs, grants, contracts and sub-awards that reach Planned Parenthood and its affiliates — and, if it finds problems, consider penalties up to cutting them out of federal health programs entirely.
The $88 million claim
The letter leans on a federal review of pandemic loans. The Small Business Administration is looking at more than $88 million in COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program loans that 38 Planned Parenthood affiliates received.
The lawmakers' letter describes that as an investigation into whether the affiliates "illegally received $88 million."
No one has found that. The SBA's own announcement, which the letter cites in a footnote, is titled "SBA Opens Review of Over $88 Million in Planned Parenthood Paycheck Protection Program Loans" — letters demanding that 38 affiliates prove they were eligible, as part of a review the SBA says aims "to uncover whether PPFA affiliates misrepresented the size of their respective organizations or the nature of their affiliation with PPFA to fraudulently qualify for the loans." That's a review looking for wrongdoing, not a finding of it. Even Fox News, which got the letter first, noted that the SBA has described its action as a review of whether the affiliates were eligible for the loans — and that "the review itself is not a finding that the affiliates violated the law."
The letter also cites reports alleging Planned Parenthood failed to follow child-abuse reporting rules. Fox notes those have not been established as findings by the inspector general either. When Fox asked, the inspector general's office said it hadn't even received the letter yet.
Smith said a probe is "long overdue."
What the last attack on Planned Parenthood did
This is not an abstract fight. Republicans already used Trump's 2025 budget bill to ban Planned Parenthood from Medicaid for one year after the law passed in July 2025. Medicaid patients only regained access on July 3, 2026, when the ban expired.
According to Planned Parenthood's own figures, reported by the Times Leader, the ban forced nearly 30 clinics across the country to close. And from October 2025 to April 2026, compared with the same months a year earlier:
- Almost 25% fewer packs of birth control pills were dispensed.
- IUD and other long-acting birth control visits fell 26%.
- Breast exams fell 20%.
- STI testing fell 10%.
Those are the services most people walk into Planned Parenthood for. In Pennsylvania, Planned Parenthood Keystone had seen 5,253 Medicaid patients the year before; it treated them unpaid for eight months, then had to start referring them out.
The ban ran out. Smith's letter asks for the review that could lead to the next one — exclusion from federal health programs — and it frames an unfinished eligibility review as illegal conduct to get there.
Who signed it
The letter is dated October 1, 2026, and is addressed to HHS Inspector General T. March Bell. The copy published by the Magnolia Tribune carries 127 signatures, led by Sen. James Lankford and Smith. These are the 103 signers who are on the ballot this year and have a report card on this site:
- Alabama: Robert Aderholt, Barry Moore, Gary Palmer, Mike Rogers, Dale Strong, Tommy Tuberville
- Arizona: Andy Biggs, Eli Crane, Paul Gosar
- Arkansas: French Hill, Bruce Westerman, Steve Womack
- California: Vince Fong
- Florida: Gus Bilirakis, Kat Cammack, Scott Franklin, Mike Haridopolos, Ashley Moody, Jimmy Patronis, John Rutherford, Greg Steube
- Georgia: Andrew Clyde, Brian Jack, Austin Scott
- Idaho: Russ Fulcher, Jim Risch, Mike Simpson
- Illinois: Mike Bost, Mary Miller
- Indiana: Jim Baird, Erin Houchin, Mark Messmer, Jefferson Shreve, Marlin Stutzman
- Kansas: Ron Estes, Tracey Mann, Roger Marshall, Derek Schmidt
- Louisiana: Clay Higgins, Julia Letlow
- Maryland: Andy Harris
- Michigan: John Moolenaar
- Minnesota: Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach, Pete Stauber
- Mississippi: Mike Ezell, Michael Guest, Cindy Hyde-Smith
- Missouri: Mark Alford, Eric Burlison, Bob Onder
- Montana: Troy Downing
- Nebraska: Mike Flood, Pete Ricketts
- New Jersey: Chris Smith
- New York: Nick Langworthy, Claudia Tenney
- North Carolina: Virginia Foxx, Mark Harris, Richard Hudson, Addison McDowell, Tim Moore, David Rouzer
- North Dakota: Julie Fedorchak
- Ohio: Warren Davidson, Jim Jordan, Bob Latta, Michael Rulli
- Oklahoma: Stephanie Bice, Josh Brecheen, Kevin Hern
- Pennsylvania: John Joyce, Mike Kelly, Scott Perry, Glenn Thompson
- South Carolina: Sheri Biggs, Darline Graham, Joe Wilson
- South Dakota: Mike Rounds
- Tennessee: Marsha Blackburn, Tim Burchett, Chuck Fleischmann, Diana Harshbarger, Matt Van Epps
- Texas: Brian Babin, Michael Cloud, Brandon Gill, Craig Goldman, Lance Gooden, Ronny Jackson, Nathaniel Moran, August Pfluger, Keith Self, Pete Sessions, Randy Weber
- Utah: Blake Moore
- Virginia: Ben Cline, Morgan Griffith, John McGuire
- West Virginia: Riley Moore
- Wisconsin: Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Grothman
- Wyoming: Harriet Hageman
Every one of them put their name under the sentence saying the SBA "opened an investigation into whether Planned Parenthood affiliates illegally received $88 million" — and under the request to consider "exclusion from federal health care programs."
What the record shows
Chris Smith co-led a letter from 128 Republicans — 103 of them on this site — asking HHS's inspector general to investigate Planned Parenthood and consider cutting it out of federal health programs. The letter calls an SBA review of $88 million in pandemic loans an investigation into whether affiliates "illegally received" the money, though the SBA describes it as an eligibility review that is not a finding of wrongdoing. The last Republican funding ban on Planned Parenthood, in Trump's 2025 budget bill, closed nearly 30 clinics by Planned Parenthood's count and cut birth control and breast exam visits by a fifth or more.
Sources
- Letter to HHS Inspector General T. March Bell, October 1, 2026, via the Magnolia Tribune
- EXCLUSIVE: 128 GOP lawmakers call for federal probe into Planned Parenthood's taxpayer funding — Fox News, as posted by Rep. Chris Smith's office
