Obama fundraiser 'pressured government officials to approve loan guarantee' for bankrupt solar company Solyndra



Steven Spinner helped raise at least $500,000 for the President's campaign

Government officials were pressured into approving a $533 million loan guarantee for now-bankrupt Solyndra by an elite Barack Obama fundraiser whose lawyer wife worked for a firm representing the California solar company, leaked emails have shown.

Steven Spinner, hired to help oversee the Obama administration's energy loan program, told officials from the Department of Energy to move faster to rubber stamp a loan guarantee for the company.

Solar start-up company Solyndra LLC announced in August it was filing for bankruptcy, just 15 months after receiving a $535 million in federal loan money.

In office: Steven Spinner was hired to help oversee the Obama administration's energy loan program

A model business: President Barack Obama visits Solyndra's factory in Fremont, California, in 2010

Mr Spinner, an energy investor and high-tech consultant, raised at least $500,000 for the President's campaign before he was given a crucial job helping to oversee the energy loan guarantee program, it has been reported.



According to ABC News, Spinner wrote in emails made public yesterday: 'How hard is this? What is he waiting for?

'I have OVP [Office for the Vice President] and WH [White House] breathing down my neck on this.'

It has emerged that many of the emails were written days after Spinner pledged in an ethics agreement that he would 'not participate in any discussion regarding any application involving [his wife's law firm] Wilson [Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati].'

Under investigation: Solar company Solyndra LLC filed for bankruptcy just 15 months after receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee

Pioneering: Solyndra was the first company to receive a loan guarantee under an advanced clean energy program in 2009

The loan for Solyndra was approved in 2009 and it was the first company to receive a loan guarantee under an advanced clean energy program, created in 2005.



The business's factory in Fremont, California, even received a visit from President Obama in 2010 who, embarrassingly, hailed the company as a model of his efforts to create new jobs in the emerging clean energy market.

FBI officials remove files from the company... the loan is the subject of multiple investigations

However in late August, the company abruptly shut its doors and days later declared it was filing for bankruptcy. Now the loan is the subject of multiple investigations, by Congress and by the Department of Justice.



The company's dramatic fall from grace has been monitored closely because it received a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2009.



At the end of August Solyndra LLC announced it had succumbed to pressure from lower-cost Chinese rivals and suspended its operations. Days later it revealed it would be filing for bankruptcy.

It has been revealed that within the lengthy email discussions occurring in the days before the Solyndra loan closed in September 2009, Spinner has emerged as a key figure sealing the deal, apparently in a bid to claim securing the loan as a political victory for President Obama.

In one such email, according to ABC News, he writes to Department of Energy officials who were due to make the final decisions on the loan: 'Hopefully, this might spur [the Office of Management and Budget] a little faster to help the closing.'

Records from the Recovery Act have shown that the law firm employing Spinner's wife Allison has received $2.4million in federal funds for legal fees related to Solyndra's $535 million loan guarantee from the Energy Department.

Courtney Dorman, spokeswoman for Mrs Spinner's firm Wilson Sonsini, said the company took action to avoid conflicts in matters involving the Energy Department while Spinner was in office.