Solaris is Fraud

Solargate Unraveled

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Scandal: The White House pressured federal officials to OK a loan to an insolvent but politically tied green energy company in advance of a vice-presidential photo-op.
Corruption is not an energy policy. Emails released to the Washington Post before Wednesday's hearings on the $535 million stimulus loan guarantee issued to now-bankrupt Solyndra Inc. reveal the extent of, and resistance to, White House pressure to get the loan approved so Vice President Joe Biden could announce it at a Sept. 4, 2009, groundbreaking event.
The White House has denied applying pressure or even monitoring the review process, saying the stimulus loan guarantee was a good "investment."

The emails show these statements to be false and that the White House knew Solyndra, whose major investor was Tulsa billionaire and Obama fundraiser George Kaiser, was at risk of going under.

The emails show White House officials repeatedly asking the Office of Management and Budget about progress on the loan review. One email from a budget official referred to "the time pressure we are under to sign off on Solyndra" and referred to "a situation of having to do rushed approvals."

"This deal is NOT ready for prime time," one budget analyst wrote in a March 10, 2009, email.

Another Aug. 31, 2009, message written by an OMB staffer and sent to Terrell McSweeny, Biden's domestic policy adviser, concluded, "We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews."

As the Government Accountability Office has stated, due diligence was not done.

Fact is, Solyndra was not a good investment and the White House knew it. The loan guarantee was pushed as part of President Obama's green agenda and to reward a political benefactor.

In one email, an assistant to Rahm Emanuel, now mayor of Chicago but then White House chief of staff, wrote on Aug. 31, 2009, to OMB about the upcoming Biden announcement on Solyndra and asked if "there is anything we can help speed along on the OMB side."
An OMB staffer responded that he "would prefer that the announcement be postponed. ... This is the first loan guarantee, and we should have full review with all hands on deck to make sure we get it right." The White House, which logs show was visited frequently by Solyndra officials, was more interested in getting it done quickly.
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., chairman of the panel's oversight and investigations subcommittee, said last week that an FBI raid of a Solyndra factory confirmed their belief that the White House's green energy centerpiece was a "bad bet" from the start.

As early as August 2008, outside rating agency Fitch gave Solyndra a B-plus credit rating. Two months earlier, Dun & Bradstreet issued a credit rating for the company of "fair." Of the B-plus rating, Fitch spokeswoman Cindy Stoller said: "It's a noninvestment-grade rating."
In an SEC filing in March 2010, independent auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers said several negative financial factors regarding Solyndra "raise substantial doubts about its ability to continue as a going concern."
The emails show the White House was ignoring the obvious warning signs.

"This loan guarantee was pursued by both the Bush and Obama administrations," White House spokesman Eric Schultz explained in a lame attempt to spread blame.

Yet the results of the congressional probe to date shared with ABC News show that on Jan. 9, 2009, two weeks before President George W. Bush left office, the Energy Department's credit committee voted against a loan commitment for Solyndra.
At least programs such as Cash for Clunkers were honestly run, if dumb in concept.

This Cash for Contributors program goes beyond crony capitalism and shows that ideology and political power are the only concerns of an incompetent administration that once promised hope and change.