Less than one year after President Barack Obama touted his administration’s $535 million loan guarantee for green energy company Solyndra during his State of the Union address, embarrassed White House officials wanted nothing to do with the company, newly released internal emails reveal.
The emails, which are part of the administration’s seventh document dump in response to congressional subpoenas, show just how little faith the White House had in the former green tech darling — weeks before the Department of Energy restructured the failing company’s loan to ensure it tens of millions of dollars in additional financing.
In May 2010, the president said that “companies like Solyndra” are the “true engine of economic growth.” In his State of the Union address earlier that year, the president referred to the company as a veritable stimulus darling, a “California business that will put a thousand people to work making solar panels.”
But White House communications officials didn’t even want the president seen near Solyndra executives during the 2011 State of the Union address.
“Can’t do Solyndra … they’ve run into some issues recently. ,” Daniella Gibbs Léger, director of White House message events, wrote in a Jan. 5, 2011 email, according to Politico.
And an administration official told Politico on Friday that the idea of seating Solyndra executives near the president “didn’t even make it to any sort of serious consideration.”
