Solyndra, the Department of Energy, and the White House: "No es bueno"....

The Motley Monk had thought the whole Solyndra debacle was a "thing of the past" and those 1k jobs that President Obama pledged in return for the $500M+ government loan to the solar panel maker were histoire.

The Washington Post is reporting, however, that Solyndra officials warned Senior White House officials that the company was going to announce layoffs just before the hotly-contested November 2010 midterm elections.

The chronology:

Solyndra's CEO notified the Department of Energy (DOE) on October 25, 2010, that he planned to announce layoffs in three days.  Two days later, Heather Zichal, a top aide to the White House "Climate Czar" Carol Browner, wrote Browner stating:

No es bueno.  Sounds like they will make this announcement next week, but press is sniffing around so it may come out sooner.

One day later, Zichal told colleagues that the layoff announcement had been put off a week and an aide to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel reported to Vice President Biden's Chief of Staff, Ron Klain:

I hear from [Zichal] that whatever announcement of "problems" they are considering has been delayed a week.

"I promise to tell the whole truth..."

Reading this document dump, The Motley Monk finds it interesting to note that Secretary of Energy Steven Chu testified to Congress after the November mid-term elections that he didn't know anything about a move to put off the announcement.  Secretary Chu promised he would find out who was involved.   In his testimony, he said:

It's not the way I do business. I would not have approved it.

So, then, The Motley Monk is wondering: Just how did the Solyndra CEO's notification to DOE get from DOE to Heather Zichal if Secretary Chu didn't know anything about it and hasn't identified who was directly involved?

There should be no surprise here to anyone, except for those who blindly support President Obama and his administration.  After all, politics is politics---Democrat or Republican---pretty dirty and clandestine stuff, especially when the politics are maintaining power and not the people's interests.

But, it gets worse.

This advance notice provided the Obama administration the time it needed to lobby Solyndra's CEO to postpone delivering the politically damaging news.

In contrast to Secretary Chu's later testimony to Congress as well as his subsequent failure to identify who at DOE was involved, the documents reveal that DOE officials asked and then persuaded Solyndra's CEO to delay the announcement until November 3, the day following Election Day 2010.  This was confirmed by an investment adviser for Solyndra who wrote at the time that DOE officials were pushing “very hard” for a delay until after the elections.

"Ya' win some and ya' lose some.  Stop crying over spilt milk."

While the newly-released documents offer no evidence that White House officials directed anyone to request the delay in publicizing the layoff (that's euphemistically called "plausible deniability"), a DOE spokesman said the DOE Inspector General has been asked to review the delayed announcement.

The Motley Monk notes that this "document dump" fits what has been this administration's modus operandi, namely, that embarrassing news is "dumped" late on a Friday afternoon.  If it is brought up on the Sunday morning talk shows, Obama administration officials have had plenty of time to brush up on their stories.


Let the discussion begin...




To read the Washington Post report, click on the following link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-got-heads-up-on-solyndras-pending-layoff-announcements/2012/01/13/gIQAupzKxP_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines