Solyndra probed

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The political scandal over the failure of Solyndra, the politically connected solar-panel maker, just got a lot more interesting. The FBI raided the company's Fremont, California offices yesterday and executed a search warrant.

Congress has been investigating the company, which received a $535 million government loan guarantee in March 2009 and announced August 31 that it is filing for bankruptcy. Yesterday's FBI raid is the first hint of a larger government probe, which is being conducted in cooperation with the Department of Energy's Inspector General. . . .

Solyndra was once a leading light, if you will, of the Obama Administration's signature "green jobs" dreams. The Energy Department signed off on the loan guarantee under a George W. Bush-era law, and the Federal Financing Bank, a unit of the Treasury Department, also provided a loan with a 1.025% quarterly interest rate. A parade of Administration officials praised the investment, including President Obama, who said in a speech last year at the company's Fremont headquarters that "companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future."

Solyndra never did turn a profit and laid off employees in November. But in February the company renegotiated its loan guarantee—with a hitch. Under the new agreement, Solyndra's investors would loan the company $75 million but be first in line on repayment in the event of bankruptcy, in front of taxpayers.

WSJ gives the Obama administration's spin:

Speaking about the bankruptcy earlier this week, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: "There are no guarantees in the business world about success and failure. That is just the way business works, and everyone recognizes that." He added that "you cannot measure the success based on one company or the other."

WSJ responds:

That is all true enough, but then most businesses don't stick taxpayers with hundreds of millions of dollars in potential losses when they fail. The problem with politically directed investment isn't merely that bureaucrats are betting with someone else's money on industries they may not understand. Such investment also invites political favoritism for the powerful few at the expense of millions of middle-class taxpayers. Americans need to know the full story of who made or influenced the decision to give Solyndra its loan guarantee, and if political pressure was brought to bear.

My mom comments on the raid:

Political connections can come back to bite you, when the politicians you were connected to need to gnaw through that connection and run like hell.