FBI raids Solyndra this morning: “Anybody seen $535 million around here?”
At this moment, FBI agents are raiding the now-vacant Solyndra offices in Fremont, executing a Department of Energy and Office of Inspector General warrant in search of evidence about the plant’s abrupt bankruptcy last week.
A beleaguered Solyndra spokesman took a wild guess at what the FBI might be looking for:
Solyndra spokesman Dave Miller said the search came as a surprise, but he emphasized the company is “fully cooperating” with federal officials. He said he did not know the purpose of the search, but he speculated it could have something to do with the $535 million in loan guarantees the Department of Energy awarded to Solyndra.
Ya think?
While the “Anybody seen $535 million around here?” quote in the headline is of course a joke, Business Insider adds some key context to the raid:
The Obama administration’s relationship with the company has come under scrutiny since the bankruptcy was abruptly announced last week. The Daily Caller reported that between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, “Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing.”
Solargate?
UPDATE:
NBC’s local affiliate now has a photographer on site who has filed the first images from the raid:
(Photo by Christie Smith / NBC Bay Area)
NBC adds,
Agents arrived at Solyndra at 7a.m. and were examining the factory. Solynrda has a skeleton crew of 100 workers on the scene, who are closing the factory down.
UPDATE II:
Here’s a direct link to the Daily Caller article cited above:
Not only does the now-bankrupt solar energy firm Solyndra have a cozy financial relationship with the Obama administration, company representatives also made numerous visits to the White House to meet with administration officials, The Daily Caller has learned.
According to White House visitor logs, between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing. In the week before the administration awarded Solyndra with the first-ever alternative energy loan guarantee on March 20, four separate visits were logged.
UPDATE III:
ABC’s blog now has an even better picture:
UPDATE IV:
The L.A. Times just added the most iconic picture yet:
Geez, a real cynic might conclude that the Obama administration is trying to cover its @$$ by sending the FBI on a raid.
Tsk tsk tsk, don’t be so cynical! Nothing this administration does is ever underhanded — haven’t you learned that yet?
And remember, it’s not the crime but the coverup that usually entangles a politician in a scandal. If this raid is part of a cover-your-ass operation, it could end up backfiring.
Ya mean, like Fast and Furious?
Let’s crank up the conspiracy machine. This looks like the work of Team Clinton.
I blame Sarah Palin
Hey CB, you can’t blame Sarah Palin; it’s already Bush’s fault.
Well, remember how Team Clinton disappeared VP Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance from the list of items seized at the Unibomber’s home. I’m sure there are many Inconvenient Truths in the Solyndra business records; it has been referred to as Obama’s Enron.
Reading the comments a little further, I’m sure “great unknown” is correct: this will used to stall Congressional investigations until the election is over.
It’s much simpler than that. Invoking the Holder Doctrine, the DOJ can attempt to preempt any Congressional investigation by claiming that it would interfere with an ongoing investigation.
I would also not hold old any great hope for the survival of any evidence that implicates any members of the Administration. Here, we need only look to the recent SEC file shredding.
As far as the CYA problem, the MSM has suppressed the ATF gunrunning scandal rather well. It’s only a coverup is the NYT says it is. Hopefully, citizen journalism will help.
Heard on F&F this morning the Holder is saying he had no knowledge of the fast & furious operation.
Crickets from the rest of the media.
The response should be that if his people were running that kind of operation without his knowledge, he should immediately be fired as incompetent.
Hit it right on the head. And this investigation will continue until the statute of limitations runs out, and as much of that half-billion dollars is plowed back into the re-election campaigns of California Democrats as can be found.
After which it will be dismissed, the money written off, and the records shredded. SOP for the SOBs in the DNC.
Fortunately, the statute of limitation runs way past Jan 2013
It’s not teflon if the press studiously avoids throwing anything that might stick.
The FBI got a tip that Solyndra was edging its solar panels with Rosewood.
Simple. They were using panels make of ebony and rosewood imported from India.
6 seconds! Go ahead AD, smirk.
LOL
This raid will be reported Friday on page 6F, right beside the Obits. Then it will be ignored. By Monday, the MSM will say “Sol – who”?
Isn’t the Lean Forward Team going to help us our here? C’mon Matthews and Sharpton, do some journalism for a change. Eric Holder could be out in the street killing babies, and this crowd would say, “hmm, Darth Cheney! He wrote a book, evillllll.” MSM circle jerkers.
The only jobs Obama will create or save are those of the federal agents needed to raid offices of bankrupt green companies on the dole.
I agree with you 100% Jonathan. He could not create a job if he had $200 dollars in his pocket for labor, a shovel in his hand, and a contract to dig a hole in the backyard of the White House 2′ X 2′ X 2′. He would get confused on which 2′ to dig first.
We had top men analysing the Solyndra records. Top. Men.
Until the records room fire, that is.
Anyone think any MSM reporter will do the math and ask:
Is it true, Mr. President (Mr. Carney, Mr. Chu) the 1100 jobs at Solyndra cost US taxpayers more than $486,000 apiece?
In total, how many greenbacks have all the green jobs cost taxpayers since 2009?
Wouldn’t it be less costly and more directly boost the economy to simply send $100,000 to every US taxpayer?
Well, if the DOE’s IG ends up getting re-assigned or fired, you’ll know.
A commentator said the other day that the Obama administration is “squeaky clean” in terms of scandals, and thus will likely win reelection as opposed to the scandal-ridden Bush administration.
In reality, Obama and his band of crooks are a target rich environment that would have days-on-end screaming headlines were it a Republican administration, starting with “I’ve been to all 57 states” mocking on Saturday Night Live through the $800 billion stimulus evaporating into thin air for non-existent “shovel ready jobs,” to the murderous DOJ/ATF gun-running fiasco, to this obvious “ecogreen Solargate” money laundering scam.
The administration stinks, from the head.
Well, they ARE in San Francisco. If there is missing government money, the first people I’d check are Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein and, more specifically, their husbands.
I simply don’t believe that some of the Solyndra money didn’t rub off on the friends and relatives of these two democrats.
Where are the drawn guns? The USDA would not dream of raiding a raw food co-op or small dairy farm without having their weapons ready.
Gunwalker, Gangwalker and now this. The 53%ers were duped but 47% of them don’t pay taxes, so why should they worry.
Call it SOLARGATE ! Labels stick! Labels evoke images and memories. Obama’s SOLARGATE !! Yes, even if they do confiscate anything incriminating and bury it forever, the loss of half a B.. B… Billion dollars should have traction. Give it a label and it will stick… SOLARGATE
I had that self-obsessed bombast, Michael Savage, on last night, only because he comes on after Mark Levin and I was too lazy to get up and turn off the radio.
A female caller said she worked for Solyndra since before the loan guarantees were granted by the Obama administration. She said it was common knowledge around the company even then that they could never compete with the Chinese, because the ChiComs had already developed a superior technology to Solyndra’s. But they went ahead and spent the $535 mil anyway.
Good thing for some conservative journalist to investigate.
So then why the HELL didn’t she quit the job and blow the whistle, before the money got spent?
Hmm?
This is California, right? I bet they find the money in the private vault of a short little rich guy who still wears spats over his webbed feet.
“Solargate”? Come on. The MSM likes to use the “-gate” suffix for every scandal, so that they can remind us all of a Republican scandal.
Let’s go with “Solarquiddick”.
Dear LA Times,
Please find out when the FBI hired Mo Rocca.
Whats next WindGate? I’m not talking about windmills, I’m talking about all the hot air coming from the White House.
Looks like Chicago politics to me, what due you expect -only doing what he(Obama) knows how to do: train in the down & dirty of political action in operations.
“A puzzled Solyndra employee told reporters that the armed agents ignored the fourteen cardboard boxes full of money and concentrated on removing all of the framed pictures from the office walls, most of which showed President Obama meeting Solyndra employees, touring the facilities, eating lunch in the employee dining room, and sitting in on several board meetings.”
(Kudos to G.U. – Holder just pre-empted the House investigation of Solyndra.)
Perhaps Obama’s attempt to stealthily redistribute wealth…to whom I do not know.