Jump to content
Bad_Daddy

Feds execute search warrants at California solar firm

 Share

4 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

http://news.yahoo.com/feds-execute-search-warrants-calif-solar-firm-154313839.html;_ylt=AjoCziJIHUOw1CWPQyUoOEkSscB_;_ylu=X3oDMTRobjdwMWxqBGNjb2RlA2dtcHRvcDIwMHBvb2xyZXN0BG1pdANOZXdzIGZvciB5b3UEcGtnAzU0MWFhZTJjLWRiYTgtM2RmNC05NjFkLTE1ZTczYmJmMjljYwRwb3MDNgRzZWMDbmV3c19mb3JfeW91BHZlcgNkYjRlZjExMC1kYTQ0LTExZTAtOGU5Zi03MjBmNjk1YTVhMmI-;_ylg=X3oDMTJwc3BuMHVnBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDYjZjOWI0YzctMTFkZS0zNmU0LWFlOTMtNGFkMmU4ZGRjNDI0BHBzdGNhdAMEcHQDc3RvcnlwYWdlBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

By JASON DEAREN - Associated Press | AP – 8 hrs ago

FREMONT, Calif. (AP) — FBI agents executed search warrants on Thursday at the headquarters of California solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, which received more than $500 million in federal loan guarantees before filing for bankruptcy last week.

Agents executed multiple search warrants at the company's headquarters in Fremont as part of an investigation with the Department of Energy's Office of Inspector General, according to FBI spokeswoman Julianne Sohn.

Sohn said she could not provide details about the investigation, including what agents were gathering in the company's offices as the search continued hours after the early morning raid. A white truck in the company's parking lot was being filled with items taken by the FBI.

Solyndra spokesman Dave Miller said agents were collecting documents but the company did not know the reason for the search. Company executives were on the premises but were not likely to make a statement Thursday, he said.

"It certainly was a shock this morning to arrive and see the FBI here this morning," he said.

The assumption was that the search was related to the loan guarantees, Miller said.

Solyndra LLC was held up as the model for government investment in green technology. Before it announced last week that it was filing for bankruptcy and laying off 1,100 workers, it was touted by President Barack Obama as a beneficiary of his administration's economic policies. The president visited the company last year.

The $535 million loan guarantee was part of the $862 billion economic stimulus package that Congress passed in 2009.

But Solyndra, like other companies in the nation's solar energy, fell on hard times. The price for solar panels has tanked, in part because of heavy competition from Chinese companies, dropping by about 42 percent this year.

"It's really sad to everybody who worked here," Miller said. "We believed in the technology."

Solyndra raised about $528 million of the $535 million in federal loan guarantees, according to its bankruptcy filing.

The loan attracted attention from Republican lawmakers early on as they questioned whether politics played a role in the company getting funding. One of the company's investors, George Kaiser of Oklahoma, helped raised money for President Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns, chairman of a House subcommittee investigating Solyndra, recently called on the White House to release all communications between the White House and Solyndra and its investors. The House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a subpoena in July seeking documents from the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Democrats opposed those efforts, but on Thursday began to change their tact. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., called on Stearns to invite Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison to a hearing on Sept. 14. Waxman said that Harrison met with committee members less than two months ago and assured lawmakers that the company was in a strong financial position.

"These assurances appear to contrasts starkly with the company's decision to file for bankruptcy...," Waxman said.

Republicans are using Solyndra's financial woes as ammunition in attacking the effectiveness of the stimulus package. The raid Thursday morning came just hours before the president appears before both chambers of Congress to appeal for more legislation that would help the economy and reduce the nation's 9.1 percent unemployment rate.

The company is also being sued by workers who were abruptly laid off after last week's announcement.

sigbet.jpg

"I want to take this opportunity to mention how thankful I am for an Obama re-election. The choice was clear. We cannot live in a country that treats homosexuals and women as second class citizens. Homosexuals deserve all of the rights and benefits of marriage that heterosexuals receive. Women deserve to be treated with respect and their salaries should not depend on their gender, but their quality of work. I am also thankful that the great, progressive state of California once again voted for the correct President. America is moving forward, and the direction is a positive one."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Filed: K-1 Visa Country: China
Timeline

Report: Obama White House Intervened To Get Loan For Questionable Solar Energy Firm

Doug Mataconis · Friday, September 2, 2011

The investigation into the federally guaranteed loans to the now-bankrupt solar energy firm Solyndra has already begin, and ABC News reports that House investigators the White House became directly involved in the loan application process in order assist Solyndra in obtaining the loans that it has now defaulted on:

House investigators said they have uncovered evidence that White House officials became personally involved in an Energy Department review of a hot-button $535 million loan guarantee to the now-failed California solar company Solyndra.

The allegation surfaced in a letter House Energy Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) sent to the White House Thursday night, saying he planned to accelerate efforts to understand an investment deal that may have left taxpayers out half a billion dollars.

“We have learned from our investigation that White House officials monitored Solyndra’s application and communicated with [Department of Energy] and Office of Management and Budget officials during the course of their review,” the letter says.

Thursday’s letter, which calls on the White House to turn over correspondence between administration officials, Solyndra and its investors, presents the most pointed suggestion that the White House had direct involvement in the financing.

“How did this company, without maybe the best economic plan, all of a sudden get to the head of the line?” Upton told ABC News in an interview this week. “We want to know who made this decision … and we’re not going to stop until we get those answers.”

This isn’t necessarily a new revelation. Way back on May 24th, ABC News was reporting the Administration had cut corners on behalf of the firm in order to get the loan approved:

The Obama administration bypassed procedural steps meant to protect taxpayers as it hurried to approve an energy loan guarantee to a politically-connected California solar power startup, ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News have learned.

The Energy Department in March 2009 announced its intention to award Solyndra Inc. a $535 million loan guarantee before receiving final copies of outside reviews typically used to vet such deals. An independent federal auditor who has reviewed the energy loan program said moving so quickly without completing thorough reviews risked exposing the program to claims of political influence and put taxpayers at greater risk.

“There’s a consequence if you don’t follow a rigorous process that’s transparent,” said Franklin Rusco, an analyst with the Government Accountability Office. “It makes the agency more susceptible to outside pressures, potentially.”

The Solyndra loan guarantee, advertised by the administration as part of its signature effort to create jobs while weaning the U.S. from traditional energy sources, already has drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have requested documents from the Energy Department as part of an investigation into how the company qualified for government support and then, a year later, closed a plant, laid off workers, and eventually had to renegotiate the terms of the loan guarantee. The shortcuts at the dawn of the deal identified by government auditors have stoked more questions.

The Energy Department said at the time that they had gathered enough independent evidence to approve the loan. However, one of the the key investors in Solyndra was the Oklahoma-based George Kaiser Family Foundation. George Kaiser, who heads the foundation, is a billionaire who also happens to a man who raised large amounts of money for Barack Obama. That, combined with the reported intervention by White House officials, raises some significant questions about the role the White House played in getting a company with a terrible balance sheet a multi-million dollar federally guaranteed loan. As it turns out, though, Solyndra isn’t the only company with connections to the Obama White House that got such loans:

Several political allies of the president have ties to companies receiving Energy Department loans, grants or loan guarantees. For instance, the venture firm of another top Obama bundler, Steve Westly, has financially supported companies that won more than half a billion dollars in energy grants and loans during President Obama’s time in office, iWatch News and ABC News reported in March. Relatively few applicants succeed in winning such benefits. The Energy Department said every one of those awards was won on merit.

Perhaps that will turn out to be the case, but based on the before and after picture of Solyndra it’s pretty clear that the criteria the government was using to determine the viability of the companies it was loaning money to was nowhere near adequate. As I said yesterday, this is by no means surprising. Government bureaucrats simply don’t have the incentive to be careful with these types of decision in the manner that private investment managers do, because they face no consequences for being wrong. That. faced with the possibility of political pressure from the White House, is yet another reason why Government should not be in the venture capital business to begin with.

Rich Lowry calls this “Obama’s Enron.” I’m not sure I’d go that far, but at the very least it does call into question the credibility of the Administration’s entire “Green Jobs” initiative and, if political pressure was indeed applied to the Energy Department then it’s a serious public integrity problem to say the very least. Count on hearing the name Solyndra in the news a lot over the coming months.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/report-obama-white-house-interevened-to-get-loan-for-questionable-solar-energy-firm/

If more citizens were armed, criminals would think twice about attacking them, Detroit Police Chief James Craig

Florida currently has more concealed-carry permit holders than any other state, with 1,269,021 issued as of May 14, 2014

The liberal elite ... know that the people simply cannot be trusted; that they are incapable of just and fair self-government; that left to their own devices, their society will be racist, sexist, homophobic, and inequitable -- and the liberal elite know how to fix things. They are going to help us live the good and just life, even if they have to lie to us and force us to do it. And they detest those who stand in their way."
- A Nation Of Cowards, by Jeffrey R. Snyder

Tavis Smiley: 'Black People Will Have Lost Ground in Every Single Economic Indicator' Under Obama

white-privilege.jpg?resize=318%2C318

Democrats>Socialists>Communists - Same goals, different speeds.

#DeplorableLivesMatter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

huh.....

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.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/08/solyndra-officials-made-numerous-trips-to-the-white-house-logs-show/#ixzz1XQXmyRca

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies."

Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006



barack-cowboy-hat.jpg
90f.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
- Back to Top -

Important Disclaimer: Please read carefully the Visajourney.com Terms of Service. If you do not agree to the Terms of Service you should not access or view any page (including this page) on VisaJourney.com. Answers and comments provided on Visajourney.com Forums are general information, and are not intended to substitute for informed professional medical, psychiatric, psychological, tax, legal, investment, accounting, or other professional advice. Visajourney.com does not endorse, and expressly disclaims liability for any product, manufacturer, distributor, service or service provider mentioned or any opinion expressed in answers or comments. VisaJourney.com does not condone immigration fraud in any way, shape or manner. VisaJourney.com recommends that if any member or user knows directly of someone involved in fraudulent or illegal activity, that they report such activity directly to the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. You can contact ICE via email at Immigration.Reply@dhs.gov or you can telephone ICE at 1-866-347-2423. All reported threads/posts containing reference to immigration fraud or illegal activities will be removed from this board. If you feel that you have found inappropriate content, please let us know by contacting us here with a url link to that content. Thank you.
×
×
  • Create New...