Green Weenies Headed For Jail?

Last Thursday I did a piece on the failure of green government parasite Solyndra. I didn't expect to be revisiting the subject quite so soon, but it now appears that there was something genuinely rotten in the State of Green Nirvana. The $535 million handed over to Solyndra by the Obama administration may have been something more than misspent.

For the basic background on the subject of crony capitalism green profligacy, go here. After eating up all the federal handouts, and laying off its entire work force of 1100, this "model of green efficiency" filed for bankruptcy protection. The executives of Solyndra blew through the cash faster than you can say "renewable energy." The business plan was fatally-flawed, and now it appears that at least some of the Obamists knew it before, during and after the federal palm-greasing.

ABC News, not normally expected to be a hard investigative organization when it comes to Democratic boondoggles, reports that officials of the Department of Energy regularly sat in on Solyndra board meetings, offering suggestions for phony explanations for why the taxpayers money was being thrown at a scheme that was beyond redemption. The "stimulus" funds for Obama's friends at Solyndra were fast-tracked by the Department of Energy at the request of high-level Obama operatives. Between 2009 and 2011, top executive and Solyndra co-founder George B. Kaiser visited the White House no less than sixteen times.

Kaiser was a big contributor to Obama's presidential campaign, and his reward was to spend large swaths of time at the White House, rivaling the amount of time spent there by Andy Stern of the reprehensible SEIU. As part of the deal for the infusion of taxpayer money, the taxpayers position was subordinated to that of Kaiser in the event of a company failure. Kaiser met with the Deputy Directors of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Economic Council at the White House four times in the week preceding the official grant of the $535 million loan.

While Solyndra was putting on a good show without producing anything tangible, it also spent $1 million lobbying the Obama administration and other Washington politicians (mostly Democrats) in the three years leading up to the loan. Just before he paid his back-slapping visit to the Solyndra campus, President Obama received the report of Price Waterhouse Coopers which had audited Solyndra for the Securities and Exchange Commission for most its five year existence. PWC reported: "In the first five years of operation, the company had sustained $558 million in losses and has suffered recurring losses from operations, negative cash flows since inception and has a net stockholders' deficit that, among other factors, raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern."

Ignore those annoying little facts. In obtaining search warrants for Solyndra's books, the DOJ is claiming that Solyndra's management "misled the administration" about the company's financial position and ability to produce viable green energy projects. "Shovel-ready" anyone? Federal subsidies for "green energy" have gone up 535% since 2007, with the vast majority occurring from 2009 to the present. Success rates are, to be generous, abysmal.

But gosh, it's such a good cause, the administration decided that the least it could do is cover the company's losses with taxpayer money. The PWC audit came out in March of 2010, but that didn't stop Obama from declaring in May of the same year that "companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future." For whom, Mr. President? Yourself? George Kaiser? Certainly not for the taxpayers, the employees of Solyndra, or the real world of genuine energy-production.

It is apparent that Obama and his merry band of Chicago crony-capitalists posing as socialists either knew or should have known of the inevitable failure of the start-up Solyndra. If this isn't malfeasance, it's most assuredly misfeasance. But it's also what one should expect from an administration that couldn't care less about business, knows nothing about business, and is willing to do anything to protect and encourage its largest political donors. George Kaiser remains a billionaire, and will undoubtedly be joining George Soros in funding Obama's presidential reelection bid.

This dead fish smells so bad that the FBI and the Holder Justice Department have been forced into pretending that they actually suspect possible criminal behavior and intend to do something about it. Even if the FBI search warrants produce evidence of fraud or other criminal wrongdoing, what are the odds that the crooked and highly-politicized Justice Department will do anything about it? Another thing to add to the list for the new Attorney General in 2013.