President Obama has remained silent weeks after a green-energy firm that received a more than $500 million loan from his administration went bust, avoiding a brewing controversy on Capitol Hill even as new details trickle out about the firm facing multiple investigations by Congress and the Justice Department.
Yet, some analysts say the president is helping keep a potentially damaging story alive by failing to even acknowledge Solyndra — a solar manufacturer he said was “leading the way to a brighter and more prosperous future” during a stop at its Northern California offices last year — since FBI agents raided the company’s campus earlier this month.
“Does he want to deal with this now or later?” asked Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida. “We all know this story isn’t going away. The longer you delay, the more people ask questions about whether there is something to hide.”
Obama’s Energy Department pushed through a more than half-a-billion-dollar loan to Solyndra — whose backers included major political contributors to the president — amid warnings from some administration officials who thought the investment was too risky. The company went bankrupt this month and laid of 1,100 employees, likely leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for the massive stimulus loan.
Administration officials in recent days have also acknowledged that the loan was restructured to ensure that private investors would be repaid before taxpayers. And even after discovering last year that Solyndra violated its loan deal, the Energy Department altered the terms to ensure the green-energy poster child would continue to receive public dollars.
In the three weeks since the FBI raid, Obama has avoided making any comment on the lightning-rod issue. Instead of holding a White House news conference, the president has granted interviews only to local or minority-centric media organizations — including a series of White House interviews he conducted Thursday — that focused on issues on which the president wanted to focus, such as his $450 billion jobs package or immigration reform, rather than Solyndra.
“Obviously, you don’t want the president dealing directly with negative news if you can avoid doing so,” said Northeastern University journalism professor Alan Schroeder, an expert on presidential communication. “Right now, this story is a tempest in a teapot and it seems like Republicans are just trying to score political points. It’s wise to lay low.”
But conservatives could make that increasingly difficult, as Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus implored the White House “to come clean on their involvement” in Solyndra “after throwing over $500 million dollars down the drain.”
MacManus said the issue is a political winner for Republicans, easily turning the tables on Democrats who traditionally portray the GOP as too closely aligned with corporate interests.
Still, the Energy Department approved two solar loan guarantees worth more than $1 billion just days before the expiration of the green energy program this week.
White House press secretary Jay Carney on Thursday defended the move, saying the vetting was “rigorous, merit-based and adjusted over time.”
