Friday Night Document Dump: The White House Knew Before The Election of 2010 That Solyndra Would Be Shedding Workers

A commenter mentioned that FoxNews was waiting for a document dump. Among today's items to be buried:

The Obama administration knew before the 2010 election that Solyndra LLC, a solar-panel maker that received a $535 million U.S. loan guarantee, planned to fire workers, according to e-mails released today.

The messages don’t indicate that anyone from the White House directed Solyndra to delay announcing the layoffs until after the vote. Previously released e-mails, indicating the Energy Department urged Solyndra to postpone the cuts, have been cited by House Republicans who say politics influenced Solyndra’s award and last-ditch rescue bid that put taxpayers behind $75 million in private investment.

“Here’s the deal -- Solyndra is going to announce they are laying off 200 of their 1200 workers,” Heather Zichal, a White House adviser, wrote to Carol Browner, then director of the office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, and other officials on Oct. 27, 2010. “No es bueno.”

This is the closest we've gotten to proof the White House requested the layoffs be delayed until after the election, and, while we're not there yet, the paint-by-numbers picture is getting filled in one blot at a time.

Allah notes there that that AFP ad I linked earlier seems to be talking about that White House knowledge of the layoffs. Hmmmm. It's a little more muddled as far as what can be currently proved than the ad suggests, but there's a lot of smoke here. We seem to have a White House intensely interested in Solyndra's day-to-day profitablility but simultaneously claiming it knew nothing about Solyndra's day-to-day profitability.

You know who this benefits, don't you?

The pushback here from the White House, I take it, will be that not every investment succeeds and that they shouldn’t be judged solely by the turkeys on their balance sheet. To which Mitt Romney, alleged cold-hearted layoff specialist, replies: Exactly.

posted by Ace at 08:34 PM

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