[SpaceBar]

The reason I bring it up is because that is precisely where the smoking gun would be, yet it is, curiously, the vaguest part of the story.

[topher]

Such loans made by the government would have to follow certain rules to be legal.

The Republicans on this committee on saying that this loan broke the law and should never have been issued.

I do not know what those rules/laws are.

[topher]

In BLACK AND WHITE, the article says the loan was illegally restructured:

The Report states: "It is clear DOE should never have issued the loan guarantee to Solyndra."

The article says the report states that ... the subsequent decision to restructure the terms of the loan "violated the plain language of the law."

My analogy, is that I make a loan to you for $535 million through the US Government, and then I modify the terms of repayment so that it is a sweetheart deal -- being favorable to you, and making the loan -- essentially -- illegal.

[topher]

Michelle Malkin has this article on this:

The loan was restructured so that Executives of the Company had priority over taxpayers on repayment...

Congressional report preview: Solyndra was too green to fail… at least until investors took priority over taxpayers for repayment

That article quotes the following from the Washington Post (excerpt of an excerpt):

The restructuring went forward, but within months Solyndra failed anyway, leaving federal taxpayers on the hook for much of the half-billion-dollar federal loan. Now, a year after the company’s collapse, debate continues over whether the refinancing plan was legal or a wise investment. Last week, Solyndra’s final liquidation plan estimated that the government will recover just $24 million of the $527 million that taxpayers lent to the company.

The Doug Powers/Michelle Malkin article was posted at 11:30am... Very recent news...