Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com
9/16/2011
The White House says it played no role in steering more than half-a-billion in taxpayer dollars to a solar panel firm that went bankrupt and is now under investigation by the FBI. But e-mails subpoenaed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee indicate the White House was eager to move quickly on the loan.
One day after the committee released the subpoenaed e-mails, White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked why the Obama administration pushed the $535 million loan to Solyndra Inc. of Fremont, Calif., despite numerous concerns expressed by career employees of the Energy Department and even the White House Office of Management and Budget.
“The e-mails, as have been amply demonstrated because we provided them as part of our cooperation, had to do with trying to schedule whether or not the vice president was going to make an announcement,” Carney told reporters Thursday. “It was a scheduling issue. That was the focus of the White House’s interest.”…
…One of the e-mails disclosed at the hearing was sent to the Energy Department by an assistant to then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The email was dated Aug. 31, 2009, a few days before Biden’s scheduled speech on Sept. 4. Emanuel’s aide asked the Energy Department if “there is anything we can help speed along on OMB [Office of Management and Budget] side.”…
The article continues, with video, at CNSNews.com
Related: Rahm Emanuel on Solyndra: ‘I don’t remember’
Update: Judicial Watch has more.
