Posted on 02/03/2016 8:22:06 AM PST by grundle
In 2009 the Obama administration gave $535 million to Solyndra, claiming that it would create 4,000 new jobs. However, instead of creating those 4,000 new jobs, the company went bankrupt. It was later revealed that the company’s shareholders and executives had made substantial donations to Obama’s campaign, that the company had spent a large sum of money on lobbying, and that Solyndra executives had had many meetings with White House officials.
It was also revealed that the Obama administration had already been aware of Solyndra’s financial troubles. For example, according to the company’s security filings in 2009, the company had been selling its product for less than the cost of production. Solyndra was a private company, but had been planning to use its government loans as a means of going public – so when Obama knowingly overstated the company’s condition in order to help his friends at Solyndra, he broke the same law that Martha Stewart had been sent to prison for breaking.
In September 2011, federal agents visited the homes of Brian Harrison, the company’s CEO, and Chris Gronet, the company’s founder, to examine computer files and documents. Also in September 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department launched an investigation.
On September 13, 2011, the Washington Post reported on emails which showed that the Obama administration had tried to rush federal reviewers to approve the loan so Vice President Joe Biden could announce it at a September 2009 groundbreaking for the company’s factory. The company was a hallmark of President Obama’s plan to support clean energy technologies.
The New York Times reported that government auditors and industry analysts had faulted the Obama administration for failing to properly evaluate the company’s business proposals, as well as for failing to take note of troubling signs which were already evident. In addition, Frank Rusco, a program director at the Government Accountability Office, had found that the preliminary loan approval had been granted before officials had completed the legally mandated evaluations of the company.
The New York Times quoted Shyam Mehta, a senior analyst at GTM Research, as saying “There was just too much misplaced zeal at the Department of Energy for this company.†Among 143 companies that had expressed an interest in getting a loan guarantee, Solyndra was the first one to get approval. During the period when Solyndra’s loan guarantee was under review, the company had spent nearly $1.8 million on lobbying. Tim Harris, the CEO of Solopower, a different solar panel company which had obtained a $197 million loan guarantee, told the New York Times that his company had never considered spending any money on lobbying, and that “It was made clear to us early in the process that that was clearly verboten… We were told that it was not only not helpful but it was not acceptable.â€
The Washington Post reported that Solyndra had used some of the loan money to purchase new equipment which it never used, and then sold that new equipment, still in its plastic wrap, for pennies on the dollar. Former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn told the Washington Post, “After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right… Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy.â€
On September 29, 2011, the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration had continued to allow Solyndra to receive taxpayer money even after it had defaulted on its $535 million loan.
On October 7, 2011, The Washington Post reported that newly revealed emails showed that Energy Department officials had been warned that their plan to help Solyndra by restructuring the loan might be illegal, and should be cleared with the Justice Department first. However, Energy Department officials moved ahead with the restructuring anyway, with a new deal that would repay company investors before taxpayers if the company were to default. The emails showed concerns within the Obama administration about the legality of the Energy Department’s actions. In addition, an Energy Department stimulus adviser, Steve Spinner, had pushed for the loan, despite having recused himself because his wife’s law firm had done work for the company.
In January 2012, CBS News reported that Solyndra had thrown millions of dollars worth of brand new glass tubes into garbage dumpsters, where they ended up being shattered. Solyndra told CBS that it had conducted an exhaustive search for buyers of the glass tubes, and that no one had wanted them. However, CBS discovered that Solyndra had not offered the glass tubes for sale at either one of its two asset auctions that took place in 2011. In addition, David Lucky, a buyer and seller of such equipment, told CBS that he would have bought the tubes if he had had a chance to do so. Greg Smestad, a solar scientist who had consulted for the Department of Energy, also agreed that the tubes had value, and had asked Solyndra to donate any unwanted tubes to Santa Clara University. Smestad stated, “That really makes me sad… Those tubes represent intellectual investment. These could have had a better value to do public good. I think they owed the U.S. taxpayer that.â€
In April 2012, CBS News reported that Solyndra had left a substantial amount of toxic waste at its abandoned facility in Milpitas, California.
Didn’t Martha Stewart go to prison for lying to the FBI?
Val: Well, you don't want this to be a part of your legacy.
Obama: That reminds me, how is that Hillary email thing going?
Bothing with an article like this is like bothering with an article that predicts illary will be indicted.
Yes this is all true...but he won /sarc
So what? The Congress is not about to do anything about it, so . . .We obviously have to amend the Constitution to weaken the supermajority required to convict a POTUS of impeachment. IMHO the governors of the states, rather than the members of the Senate, are more nearly peers of the POTUS and therefore should sit in judgement of any impeachment of the president.
Hillary is disqualified by law from any federal office because of her cavalier treatment of the most sensitive information, and that does not matter. Hillary controls huge troves of money after leaving the WH “dead broke,” and plenty of that money came from foreign governments while she was on the federal dime and thus constitutionally prohibited from accepting any of it.
None of that would be a problem, were it not for the corrupt segment of the population which will vote for Hillary in disregard of the law, equally as cavalier as Hillary herself.
Just one one 10,000 bits of progressive corruption and social-engineering funded by massive government debt from unbacked, manipulated, centrally-controlled Federal Reserve notes.
Hillary’s shredder?
Those financial records are in the closet in Colorado with hillary’s server.
The thug who is now the head of the FBI - currently wasting cowboys in Oregon with gleeful abandon - is the genius who thought it all up:Marth Stewart conviction.
If Comey the Corrupt applied half of his BS to the administration that he prostitutes for, the entire White House staff would be in prison.
Some of the bloggers that post on FR like to periodically remind us that water is wet.
That was a charge, but not one for which she was convicted. From CNN:
The panel of eight women and four men began deliberating Wednesday on whether Stewart and Bacanovic, 41, obstructed justice and lied to the government about her sale of ImClone Systems Inc. stock in December 2001.The conviction came exactly a week after U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum threw out the most serious charge against Stewart -- securities fraud -- which carried a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine. The charge -- which the judge had called "novel" during the trial -- accused Stewart of using her own statements that she was innocent as a ploy to mislead investors in her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
I was part of a company that manufactured solar panel fabrication assembly lines at the time. One of my jobs was contacting companies to offer our services.
After reading about Solyndra, I was directed to call them. Upon telling them what our company did, I was informed thusly:
“We aren’t that kind of company.”
“What do you mean you aren’t that kind of company. You’re a solar business aren’t you?”
“No, we aren’t that kind of company.”
*click* (they hung up, not me...I was still waiting for some sort of explanation of what kind of company they WERE...and well...now we know.)
There are two sets of laws. The official set of laws on the books that is applied to ordinary taxpaying citizens; then there is the real set of laws that is not on the books, but is applied to the folks who make the laws, and to the rich, ruling elite.
You can get into the privileged class of the elite if you are powerful and influential, such as hillary and barack. Once you are there, you are not even accused of your crimes. The media gives you a pass. You’re scot free.
The law is for peasants.
Although Solyndra was a private company, moreover, it was using its government loans as a springboard to go public. When the sale of securities is involved, federal law criminalizes fraudulent schemes, false statements of material fact, and statements that omit any “material fact necessary in order to make the statements made . . . not misleading.†And we’re not just talking about statements made in required SEC filings. Any statement made to deceive the market can be actionable. In 2003, for example, the Justice Department famously charged Martha Stewart with securities fraud. Among other allegations, prosecutors cited public statements she had made in press releases and at a conference for securities analysts — statements in which she withheld damaging information in an effort to inflate the value of her corporation and its stock.
That’s exactly what President Obama did on May 26, 2010, with his Solyndra friends about to launch their initial public offering of stock. The solar-panel company’s California factory was selected as the fitting site for a presidential speech on the virtues of confiscating taxpayer billions to prop up pie-in-the-sky clean-energy businesses.
Wow! Thanks for telling us about your own personal experience with Solyndra.
Comey’s home office?
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