The Phony Solyndra Solar Scandal
FOX News has been promoting this “scandal” story heavily. (It should be noted here that Fox’s parent company News Corp’s 2nd-largest shareholder is oil billionaire Saudi Prince al-Waleed – an “oil interest” if ever there was one.) For example, FOX News, a template story with the ever-hopeful conservative headline: Obama’s Pet Billionaire at Solyndra May Take White House Down,
A high profile, politically well-connected California solar energy company that had won a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama Administration declared bankruptcy earlier this month and closed its doors sending 1100 workers to the unemployment line. The demise of Solyndra has already sparked an FBI investigation, congressional hearings, and raised numerous questions of political cronyism and corruption connected to the highest levels of the Obama Administration.
… One of the company’s largest investors, George B. Kaiser of Tulsa, reportedly contributed $53,500 personally and bundled large amounts more for Obama in 2008. Kaiser is a billionaire with banking and oil and gas interests that rank him among the wealthiest people in the world. Kaiser also visited the White House 16 times between 2009 and 2011.
FOX News: RNC Uses Solyndra Investigation to Question New White House Jobs Proposal
FOX News: Could Solyndra Probe Mean Legal Trouble for White House?
FOX News: House GOP Widens Scope of Solyndra Investigation.
Etc., the story is repeated with various twists and added allegations throughout the conservative misinformation engine.
Jumps To “Mainstream”
As so often happens with the conservative machine, the story as spun by the right is jumping to “mainstream” news outlets. For example, this ABC story by Mathew Mosk, formerly of the Washington Times, and others, Emails: Obama White House Monitored Huge Loan to ‘Connected’ Firm pushes the conservative line, calling the firm “politically connected” and, reminiscent of Clinton-era Whitewater reporting, uses “investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee” — in other words, conservative operatives — as a source. The story claims the White House “closely monitored” Solyndra but offers no evidence of “close monitoring,” says the company is the “subject of a criminal investigation” without explaining that the investigation is into whether the company misled the government about its financial status which would mean that administration officials did not knowingly provide a loan to a failing company, claims that a prominent Obama donor is “an investor” even though the donor’s family foundation is the investor, which means the donor had nothing to gain, and to further the appearance of a sinister scheme by the Obama administration to hand money to political allies leaves out the financial involvement of the conservative Walton family. From ABC,
Newly uncovered emails show the White House closely monitored the Energy Department’s deliberations over a $535 million government loan to Solyndra, the politically-connected solar energy firm that recently went bankrupt and is now the subject of a criminal investigation.
The company’s solar panel factory was heralded as a centerpiece of the president’s green energy plan — billed as a way to jump start a promising new industry. And internal emails uncovered by investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee that were shared exclusively with ABC News show the Obama administration was keenly monitoring the progress of the loan, even as analysts were voicing serious concerns about the risk involved.
Background Of Corruption Allegations
Before looking at whether the Obama administration really had “ties to” people who had “ties to” Solyndra who somehow “benefited from” government loan guarantees, let’s have a bit of a refresher on our recent history.
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