Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s husband, Dr. Marc Mallory, received a five-figure PPP loan in April 2020. If you never knew that, you can thank the Michigan media.
Newspapers.com offers no hits for “Marc Mallory” AND “PPP,” and Google searches offer one relevant hit: a single line in a single Michigan Advance story in Dec. 2020. And the line itself indicates the information was planted by the governor’s office.
“Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office pointed out [to] the Advance Tuesday morning that Dr. Marc Mallory, Whitmer’s husband, received $42,200,” read the story.
This means that the only time anyone in the Lansing media wrote about the governor’s husband taking a PPP loan was when the information was volunteered by the governor’s office.
From there, it received no deeper examination. A single line in a single story.
Right now you might be saying: “Well, didn’t everybody take PPP loans back then?” Sure. But that’s not how the media covered that, either.
In July 2020, the Detroit News took it upon itself to explain “Why Michigan GOP congressman took PPP loan for his small business.”
It was not treated as self-evident that a company ordered by the government to shut down would seek relief from the government. Congressman Bill Huizenga had to explain why.
But Mallory’s loan, about $15,000 larger than Huizenga’s $27,500, was never examined. He never had to explain why.
Had he been asked, the Lansing media would’ve had to ask an uncomfortable question: What sense does it make to close a dental office for the flu? Today’s untreated oral infection could become tomorrow’s heart disease.
How wise was it to shut down the world for a single illness, as if other ailments are not worse? Who decided we should turn our lives upside down for a virus?
Those answers all trace back to the subject of the Lansing media fan club, Gretchen Whitmer. They went unasked, as the media stopped covering Whitmer and started covering for her.
In Dec. 2020, the same month it buried the news of Whitmer’s husband, Michigan Advance dedicated an entire story to Joe Vicari, a restaurant owner who once spoke of defying Whitmer’s orders but soon caved.
“Andiamo owner leading charge to defy COVID-19 order netted at least $1.8M in PPP funds,” read the Advance headline. This presented the funds as a windfall for Vicari personally, and not as the money needed to keep 1,000 employees paid when the government shut down their workplace.
Though Vicari ditched his protest, the state targeted him anyway, suspending the liquor license at Andiamo’s Warren for 21 days for violations of health department orders.
According to ProPublica’s Tracking PPP Database, Mallory’s firm, “Marc P Mallory DDS PLLC,” was approved for a $42,200 PPP loan on April 15, 2020.
A month earlier, Michigan’s businesses were shut down by Whitmer, who ordered Michiganders to “stay home and stay safe.”
Most of the money, $40,600, would be used to cover payroll, Mallory’s firm told the U.S. Small Business Administration. The remaining $1,600 would cover rent. Four jobs would be saved. The loan was forgiven.
As ProPublica notes, PPP applicants had to attest “that the loans are necessary for their continuing operation.”
This means even the governor’s husband felt the need for government relief during lockdowns—relief necessary to his firm’s continuing operation.
Among enjoyers of Michigan, Mallory is most famous for what Whitmer called a “failed attempt at humor” just a month after getting the PPP loan.
It was May 2020, and Mallory called a local marina owner ahead of Memorial Day weekend and asked if his boat could cut the line. Workers at the marina said no.
Then Mallory said, “I am the husband to the governor, will this make a difference?’”
It didn’t make a difference to the marina, which did not accommodate the First Fella. But when the owner made a Facebook post detailing Mallory’s request for favoritism, it soon traveled the world.
By order of the governor, people were being separated from their loved ones and their livelihoods. And here was the governor’s husband, trying to get his boat in the water.
“He regrets it,” Whitmer told reporters. “I wish it wouldn’t have happened. And that’s really all we have to say about it.”
In the end, the PPP loan didn’t help Mallory’s dental office survive the year. Mallory retired from the practice in Dec. 2020 and dissolved the firm a year later, in Dec. 2021.
Whitmer would claim later that Mallory retired from the practice due to threats owing to her Covid policy. That appears to be revisionist history and doesn’t line up with the story Mallory was telling at the time.
But as Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press reported in 2023:
“Mallory, who is now 60, announced his retirement in December 2020 and made no mention of concerns about threats then or in subsequent public statements.”
“I am pleased to announce that after 35 years in dentistry, I am retiring,” Mallory said in a letter to patients at the time.
James David Dickson is host of the Enjoyer Podcast. Join him in conversation on X @downi75.
