John on October 7, 2011 at 3:10 pm
ABC has new Solyndra emails and they are political dynamite:
An elite Obama fundraiser hired to help oversee the administration’s energy loan program pushed and prodded career Department of Energy officials to move faster in approving a loan guarantee for Solyndra, even as his wife’s law firm was representing the California solar company, according to internal emails made public late Friday.
“How hard is this? What is he waiting for?” wrote Steven J. Spinner, a high-tech consultant and energy investor who raised at least $500,000 for the candidate before being appointed to a key job helping oversee the energy loan guarantee program. “I have OVP [the Office of the Vice President] and WH [the White House] breathing down my neck on this.“
Yeah, it went through the regular process. No one was pushing or anything, trying to create a photo op. But the really damaging part won’t be that, it’ll be this:
In one pointed memo, shortly before the company declared bankruptcy, a top Treasury official wrote to the White House to make clear that the decision to restructure the deal did not have Treasury or Justice Department approval — despite early suggestions that approval from both agencies may be required.
“To our knowledge, that has never happened,” wrote Mary J. Miller, Treasury’s assistant secretary for financial markets. “While I expect that DOE has a view about why loan subordination can occur without DOJ approval or Treasury consultation, I wanted to correct any impression that we have acquiesced in the steps to date.”
Recall that we’ve been down this road before in testimony:
The fact that neither Treasury nor DOJ had approved this move and wanted it in writing that they hadn’t lends a lot of credence to Republican claims that this was a violation of the statute and DOE had reason to know it or at least to suspect it.
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