Executives of the bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, which received $535 million in loan guarantees from the Obama administration, invoked the Fifth Amendment over 20 times combined, rather than answer questions from the House Energy and Commerce oversight panel looking into their company’s failure.
Over and over again, Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison and chief financial officer W.G. Stover, responded to questions with some formulation of the following statement: “On the advice of my counsel, I invoke the privilege afforded to me by the Fifth Amendment of the U.S Constitution. I respectfully decline to answer questions.”
All of the questions came from Republicans on the committee, who pressed the executives on topics from whether their financial statements were accurate to whether they met with Obama officials.
No Democrat on the panel asked questions. Eventually, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., lamented that since the executives had asserted their constitutional rights to not answer their questions, all Republicans were doing was fishing for sound bites.
He said what Republicans were doing by repeatedly asking questions amounted to “witness badgering” that was “unseemly and inappropriate.”
Oversight subcommittee chairman Rep. Cliff Stears, R-Fla., dismissed the witnesses, but said the investigation into the Solyndra failure would continue.
