So much for Mr. Clean Jeans

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ABC News:

Investigators Probe White House Role in Massive Energy Loan

House investigators said they have uncovered evidence that White House officials became personally involved in an Energy Department review of a hot-button $535 million loan guarantee to the now-failed California solar company Solyndra.

The allegation surfaced in a letter House Energy Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) sent to the White House Thursday night, saying he planned to accelerate efforts to understand an investment deal that may have left taxpayers out half a billion dollars.

“We have learned from our investigation that White House officials monitored Solyndra’s application and communicated with [Department of Energy] and Office of Management and Budget officials during the course of their review,” the letter says.

Thursday’s letter, which calls on the White House to turn over correspondence between administration officials, Solyndra and its investors, presents the most pointed suggestion that the White House had direct involvement in the financing.

“How did this company, without maybe the best economic plan, all of a sudden get to the head of the line?” Upton told ABC News in an interview this week. “We want to know who made this decision … and we’re not going to stop until we get those answers.”

[…]

While Energy Department officials steadfastly vouched for Solyndra — even after an earlier round of layoffs raised eyebrows — other federal agencies and industry analysts for months questioned the viability of the company. Peter Lynch, a longtime solar industry analyst, told ABC News the company’s fate should have been obvious from the start.

“Here’s the bottom line,” Lynch said. “It costs them $6 to make a unit. They’re selling it for $3. In order to be competitive today, they have to sell it for between $1.5 and $2. That is not a viable business plan.”

Other flags have been raised about how the Energy Department pushed the deal forward. The Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News and ABC disclosed that Energy Department officials announced the support for Solyndra even before final marketing and legal reviews were in. To government auditors, that move raised questions about just how fully the department vetted the deal — and assessed its risk to taxpayers — before signing off.

[…]

Republicans in Congress have raised questions for months about the Energy Department’s decision to make Solyndra the poster-child for the green energy loan program. They expressed concern that so much federal money was headed to a company whose key investor was George Kaiser, an Oklahoma billionaire who raised more than $50,000 for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Since May, Kaiser has declined interview requests.

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“Pay to play” is the Chicago way. Why did all those fat cats donate so much money to a rookie senator anyway?

If you think the Republicans will help sweep this under the rug the way Nancy and Harry did for George the Lesser you’re dumber than I look.

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UPDATE:

Verum Serum:

Solyndra received over half a billion in loans from the Treasury at extremely low interest rates, allowing it to build a new manufacturing facility. Congressional investigators have caught a whiff of scandal as the rates given the company were extremely low and neither Treasury or OMB will provide documents to justify them.

[…]

Congress requested documents related to the Solyndra loan from the Office of Management and Budget. After three months and zero documents produced, a hearing was scheduled. An OMB deputy director was asked to attend but didn’t show up, claiming a scheduling conflict. Finally, OMB allowed that congressional staff could view some of the requested documents on site, but when they arrived in mid-July not all the documents were available and some that were made available had been redacted. Specifically, the information on risk ratings had been lined out. Given that this was exactly the information congress had been looking for the entire exercise was becoming a waste of time. At this point the committee held a hearing to consider issuing a subpoena for the documents. The argument seems to have broken on partisan lines with Rep. Waxman arguing against a “fishing expedition.” Now hat Solyndra has gone belly up, perhaps a little fishing is a good idea.

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I’m sure the progressive blogosphere will be all over this just as soon as they’re done investigating “Fast and Furious.”

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