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Solyndra subpoena sent to the White House
Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent the White House a subpoena for internal communications about Solyndra on Thursday night.
The move came shortly after the committee’s investigative panel voted along party lines Thursday morning to issue the demand. The subpoena was delivered to White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley and Bruce Reed, Vice President Biden’s chief of staff (see the subpoena to Daley here and the subpoena to Reed here).
The subpoena asks for "all documents referring or relating in any way to the $535 million loan guarantee issued to Solyndra, Inc., by the Department of Energy."
Republicans gave the White House until Nov. 10 to respond to their documents request.
"We hope to see good faith efforts of compliance by the White House before the Nov. 10 deadline," a GOP committee aide said.
The subpoena specifically requests all communications with Solyndra investors, as well as documents on the decision to finalize the loan and restructure it in February. More broadly, the subpoena asks for any communications about Solyndra’s financial troubles.
Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in early September about two years after receiving a $535 million Energy Department loan guarantee. Republicans have pounced on the bankruptcy, raising broad question about President Obama's investments in green energy.
Democrats on the panel bashed Republicans Thursday for voting to issue the subpoena, alleging that the move was intended to score political points.
“Apparently, what the committee really wants is a confrontation with the president, not information for the investigation,” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee, said Thursday.
Democrats insisted that the subpoena was unnecessary because the White House said it was willing to work with lawmakers to produce documents if Republicans narrowed their request.
“The White House repeatedly said that they had turned over documents and they were willing to turn over more documents,” DeGette said at Thursday’s hearing, calling the subpoena “an act of irresponsible partisanship.”
The administration says it is cooperating fully with the Solyndra investigation, noting that the White House, its Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Treasury Department and the Energy Department have provided more than 80,000 pages of documents to Republicans in recent months. The documents provided include communications between the White House and Solyndra.
The White House last month denied Republicans’ request for all internal Solyndra communications. But in a subsequent meeting this week, the White House signaled its willingness to provide at least some of the requested documents, lawmakers said.
But Republicans said the White House’s efforts were too little, too late.
“The White House has refused to produce them and we have no choice but to authorize the issuance of a subpoena to compel them,” committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said at the hearing Thursday. “I will say it again; I wish it had not come to this.”
This story was last updated at 4:08 p.m.
