Solyndra Scandal - Updated Information

One of the scandals plaguing the Obama Administration are questions related to the role of politics in the Department of Energy deciding to provide $537 million in loans to the solar manufacturing company Solyndra.  This company, which failed and filed for bankruptcy protection, had as a major investor, Obama political donor George Kaiser.

Solyndra had applied for a Department of Energy loan prior to Barack Obama's inauguration, and the DoE had rejected that application based on concerns about the viability of the company.  Once Obama became President, the DoE changed their minds and not only granted the loan to the company, but also considered providing additional funds to the company as it approached failure.  When the failure became public, questions were raised regarding if politics, specifically the relationship of Kaiser / Kaiser Family Foundation, their fund raising and meetings at the WH, resulted in the WH placing pressure on DoE Secretary Chu and those at the DoE to reverse the loan decision.  At the time, in late September, Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the visits to the WH by Kaiser and officials of his Foundation were about charity.  A WH official who was familiar with these meetings also stated that Solyndra never came up as a topic at those meetings.

Fox News is reporting that the House Energy and Commerce Committee which is investigating the Solyndra scandal uncovered:

Emails among George Kaiser, head of the George Kaiser Family Foundation; Ken Levit, the executive director of the Foundation; and Steve Mitchell, who manages Argonaut Private Equity and was a member of Solyndra's board; show that Vice President Joe Biden's office were very gung-ho.

"They about had an orgasm in Biden's office when we mentioned Solyndra," reads a Feb. 27, 2010, email from Levit to Mitchell. A follow-up email from Mitchell to Levit later that day responds with: "That's awesome! Get us a (Department of Energy) loan."

According to exchanges obtained by Fox News, in an email from Mitchell to Kaiser on March 5, 2010, Mitchell writes that "it appears things are headed in the right direction and (Energy Secretary Steven) Chu is apparently staying involved in Solyndra's application and continues to talk up the company as a success story."

In a Feb. 27, 2010, message from Levit to a party whose name has been redacted, Levit writes that there was a meeting with a group of people in "Biden's office -- they seemed to love our Brady Project -- also all big fans of Solyndra."

From this information, it appears that the WH is once again very active in covering up their wrong doing - and saw nothing wrong with providing support for Solyndra for political reasons...reasons that could have included providing 'payback' for George Kaiser - in return for Kaiser's efforts, the Admin pressed the DoE to assist Kaiser using taxpayer funds.  The purpose of using taxpayer funds for these loans was not to reward one's friends.

The Administration was less than fully truthful in their description of their interactions with Kaiser over Solyndra. One has to wonder where else in this case and others are they being less than truthful in order to cover up their misdeeds.