Free Republic

A four-year investigation has concluded that officials of the solar company Solyndra misrepresented facts and omitted key information in their efforts to get a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. government. Solyndra was the first company to get federal loan guarantees under a program that was created in 2005 and expanded by President Barack Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus package. The company’s failure soon after receiving the loan guarantee likely will cost taxpayers more than $500 million. Republicans and other critics cite it as an example of wasteful spending under the stimulus program. The report by the Energy Department’s inspector...

Until now the Solyndra scandal only reached the White House in the guise of e-mails from staffers fretting about the political implications of the disastrous bankruptcy and how it would reflect on the President’s “Winning the Future” rhetoric. Until now, the Solyndra scandal was a circumstantial log of White house visits by a big Obama donor who also was the failed solar company’s chief investor (those visits occurring right before a half-billion dollar loan guarantee was awarded by Obama’s Dept. of Energy). Until now, the White House’s direct involvement in the Solyndra scandal appeared to be over-zealous operatives looking to...

Just before solar panel maker Solyndra scrambled in August to get more cash from private investors and better loan terms from federal bureaucrats, top company officials went on a political road show. Brian Harrison, Solyndra's CEO who on Friday refused to answer questions posed by a House panel, met in July with congressional Republicans who were skeptical about how much money the Obama administration had sunk into the company's factory. He also met Democrats eager to support clean energy. "Things were on the upswing, that's what they told me," said Diana DeGette, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives....