By Susan Duclos
The Solyndra scandal is damaging enough to the Obama administration but the more information that becomes available makes it even worse.
Newly released emails, according to the Washington Post, show that the Obama administration was warned prior to the 2010 midterm elections that Solyndra was planning their initial layoffs and because it was politically damaging news for Democrats, the the Obama admin's Energy Department "persuaded" Solyndra to delay the announcement until after the November 2, 2010 elections.
The Energy Department asked the company to delay the announcement until Nov. 3, one day after the elections, previously released e-mails from company officials show.
According to a Solyndra investment adviser, the department was pushing "very hard" for the delay and the announcement was, indeed, not given until a day after the elections.
The e-mails show the looming news set off a flurry of activity at the White House. The first warning came Oct. 26, when the Energy Department’s chief of staff, Rod O’Connor, told Browner and other White House aides that the company’s bad news would come in two days and offered to discuss the matter.
The e-mails show that a day later, a top deputy to Browner was telling colleagues that the layoff announcement had been put off a week.
“I hear from [Zichal] that whatever announcement of ‘problems’ they are considering has been delayed a week,” an aide to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel wrote to Vice President Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain.
The Energy Department has declined to confirm events described in the e-mails. Energy Secretary Steven Chu testified in a November congressional investigative hearing that he didn’t know anything about a move to put off the announcement and promised he would find out who was involved.
“It’s not the way I do business,” Chu said then. “I would not have approved it.”
Since this post is dealing with Solyndra/Obama, the timing of the Americans for Prosperity $6 million ad campaign against Obama and his ties and knowledge of Solyndra's failure, is fortuitous, unless you are Barack Obama that is.
Via Jake Tapper:
The campaign will focus $5 million in TV ads that will start running Monday afternoon on network and cable outlets in battleground states Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. The group thought about running the ads in Florida, but decided against it since the Sunshine State’s airwaves are saturated with ads about the January 31 GOP primary. An additional $1 million-plus will buy ads on social media websites.
This ad picks up where AFP’s last ad left off. Last Fall the group launched a $2.4 million ad campaign against President Obama also focusing on the Solyndra controversy.
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