Solyndra Execs Will Take the Fifth Before Congress

 

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ABC News Reported on Solyndra in March

The House investigation into the matter had been underway well before the company collapsed. Federal auditors had already questioned the methods the Energy Department was using to analyze the loans. And beginning in March, ABC News, in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News, began reporting on simmering questions about the role political influence may have played in Solyndra's selection as the Obama administration's first loan guarantee recipient.

WATCH the Original ABC News Report on Solyndra

READ the Original ABC News Report on Solyndra

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The loan had been shelved by the Bush administration but was fast-tracked just days after President Obama took office, and one of the major investors in the company is an Obama fundraiser -- Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser -- who has visited the White House 16 times, including four meetings with such senior aides as Valerie Jarrett, Austan Goolsbee and Pete Rouse in the months prior to the loan's approval.

The White House has maintained that those meetings covered other topics -- including Kaiser's charitable work. And both the White House and the Department of Energy have been steadfast in their position that politics played no role in the decision to grant Solyndra the loan.

"The Department of Energy conducted exhaustive reviews of Solyndra's technology and business model prior to approving their loan guarantee application," said LaVera,. "Sophisticated, professional private investors, who put more than $1 billion of their own money behind Solyndra, came to the same conclusion as the Department: that Solyndra was an extremely promising company with innovative technology and a very good investment."

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