Even Dem Donors Warned White House About Solyndra – Obama Ignored Them

On May 26, 2011, the White House posted this video praising Solyndra as a Recovery Act success story.

Barack Obama’s gleaming example of green technology – Solyndra – filed for bankruptcy in August. The solar panel manufacturer squandered $535 million of stimulus money in a little over a year.

Why Solyndra?
Top Obama bundler George Kaiser made multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was granted a $535 million loan from the government. And top Solyndra officials also made numerous visits — 20 — to the White House, according to logs and reporting by The Daily Caller. Solyndra officials in the logs included chairman and founder Christian Gronet and board members Thomas Baruch and David Prend. The company secured the $535 million loan despite the fact that it was widely known Solyndra was in deep economic trouble and had negative cash flows since its inception.

Kaiser said he did not use political influence or talk to administration officials about a massive government loan to Solyndra. However, the Solyndra investor made multiple visits to the White House in the week before the Department of Energy approved a $535 billion guaranteed loan to Solyndra on March 20, 2009


(Solyndra)

Then there’s this…
Newly released emails show a Democratic donor expressed concern more than a year ago that now-bankrupt solar firm Solyndra’s financial situation could deteriorate and prove “embarrassing” for the Obama administration.
FOX News reported:

Newly released emails show a Democratic donor, as well as officials inside the White House, were expressing concern more than a year ago that now-bankrupt solar firm Solyndra’s financial situation could deteriorate and prove “embarrassing” for the Obama administration.

The emails were released Monday by a Republican-led House panel looking into Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy last month after receiving nearly $530 million in federal government loans. As with other internal emails that have been disclosed as part of the investigation, the documents reflected uneasiness with Solyndra among those inside and near the administration.

A Democratic fundraiser, in a May 2010 email, warned the White House to be “careful” about a planned trip by Obama to the California company.

Steve Westly, a Silicon Valley investor and Energy Department adviser, said in the email that he and others were worried that Solyndra might not “survive long-term.”

Westly urged Obama to reconsider the trip, but said that if the president did visit the company, he should avoid any remarks “that could haunt him in the next 18 months if Solyndra hits the wall, files for bankruptcy etc.”

Photo of author
Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

You can email Jim Hoft here, and read more of Jim Hoft's articles here.

 

Thanks for sharing!