Oh, my: Obama White House demanded that Solyndra delay its layoff announcements until after... the 2010 midterm elections

The House Energy and Commerce Committee may have just opened up EnergyGate's Pandora's Box:

Energy Secretary Steven Chu is scheduled to appear before a Solyndra inquiry on Thursday, so I’m sure he’ll be asked about this:

The Obama administration urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections, newly released e-mails show...

...Solyndra, the now-shuttered California company, had been a poster child of President Obama’s initiative to invest in clean energies and received the administration’s first energy loan of $535 million. But a year ago, in October 2010, the solar panel manufacturer was quickly running out of money and had warned the Energy Department it would need emergency cash to avoid having to shut down...

As you read content of one of the emails, keep in mind that the 2010 election was on November 2nd:

"DOE continues to be cooperative and have indicated that they will fund the November draw on our loan (app. $40 million) but have not committed to December yet," a Solyndra investor adviser wrote Oct. 30. “They did push very hard for us to hold our announcement of the consolidation to employees and vendors to Nov. 3rd – oddly they didn’t give a reason for that date.

This particular “investor adviser” possessed the kind of lack of inquisitiveness that probably contributed to the excitement level in the VP’s office.

As instructed, Solyndra announced the layoffs and a factory shutdown just after the elections were over. In spite of that, the DoE continued to give Solyndra installments of their taxpayer backed loan...

Update: Rahm Emanuel still doesn’t remember anything about Solyndra... whatever that was.

The malevolent propagandist named Jonathan Alter hardest hit:


Hat tip: TrendingRight.