The Republican Party is attacking the Obama administration for its ties to Solyndra, the California solar panel manufacturer previously praised by President Obama and given a half a billion dollar loan guarantee. The company went belly up abruptly earlier this month and is under investigation by the FBI. Karl Rove’s American Crossroads is getting in on the action, planning to file its own Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the Department of Energy’s communications about the company.
It’s certainly a ripe target. Solyndra was raided by the FBI earlier this month. The Government Accountability Office had raised concerns that the Energy Department agreed to back five companies — including Solyndra — with loans without properly assessing their risk of failure. All this from a company that Obama described as a company with a “true engine of economic growth.”
And the details that are emerging from the investigators at the Republican-controlled House Energy and Commerce Committee are making things look worse for the administration.
Nine days before the administration formally announced the loan, a White House budget analyst wrote an email calling the deal “NOT ready for prime time,” according to documents given to ABC News by the House Energy and Commerce Committee investigators.
“If you guys think this is a bad idea, I need to unwind the W[est] W[ing] QUICKLY,” Ronald A. Klain, then chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, in a March 7, 2009 email.
The White House said that email showed the the administration was interested in the timing of the deal, which Obama was considering announcing on the trip to California.
Yet there are a couple details of that don’t quite fit into the Republican narrative of the Solyndra ordeal. While one of the major backers of Solyndra was an Obama bundler, Brian Harrison, the CEO of the company is a registered Republican, according to a San Jose Mercury News reporter.
The Energy Department’s loan program also started under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. Documents from congressional investigators show that the Energy Department’s credit committee had voted against offering a loan commitment to Solyndra on Jan. 9, 2009, two weeks before Obama entered office.
The White House Office of Management and Budget’s Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients and DOE’s Executive Director of its loans program Jonathan Silver are scheduled to testify in front of the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee Wednesday morning.
Solyndra’s top executives were also asked to show up to explain themselves, but they have not been listed on the committee’s witness list.
