The Washington Post reports:
A major donor to President Barack Obama discussed with White House officials a solar energy company that received a half-billion dollar federal loan and later went bankrupt, newly released emails show.
The emails released by a House committee appear to contradict repeated assurances by the Obama administration that the donor, George Kaiser, never talked about Solyndra Inc. with the White House.
The White House has now changed its story. They admit that they did discuss Solyndra with Kaiser, but now say that all their contacts with Kaiser were after the loan was granted. This may be true, as far as we know now, but it does not let them off the hook, for at least two reasons.
First, the White House did lie about whether they discussed Solyndra with Kaiser. They originally said they didn’t at all; now they say those discussions were after the key decisions were made.
Second, the key decisions were not all made. The administration may have declined Solyndra’s request for a second loan, but it did agree to restructure Solyndra’s first loan (in a manner contrary to law). That renegotiation was done in December 2010, after many contacts between Kaiser and the White House, and got final approval from the Secretary of Energy in February 2011.
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