Source:
Wash. PostThe day after a senior Energy Department adviser was told to avoid discussing Solyndra’s application for a $535 million federal loan, he defended the solar company’s reputation in an exchange with a White House aide.
Steven J. Spinner, a major fundraiser for President Obama and a Silicon Valley investor tasked with helping the government invest in clean-technology companies, had an ethical conflict: His wife worked for Wilson Sonsini, a California law firm that represented Solyndra, the solar-panel maker, in its applications for the government loan.
Even so, on Aug. 19, 2009, Spinner e-mailed an aide to then-Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that Solyndra was solid, and he suggested it deserved government support.
“I haven’t heard anything negative on my side,” he responded in the e-mail exchange, proposing that he set up a talk with whomever was raising red flags. “I . . . have no idea what they’re referring
.”
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/government-adviser-defends-solyndra-despite-ethics-agreement/2011/10/08/gIQAAAZNWL_singlePage.html