Solyndra story just looking worse and worse

The solar company's executives took the Fifth during a hearing this morning, but just a few months back they were singing a happy tune. From California Watch:

Less than two months before his solar panel company filed for bankruptcy, Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that thanks to the $535 million taxpayer loan to build a new factory, his company had shipped record-breaking numbers of solar panels to buyers and was poised to double its revenue in 2011. "Factory output is ramping rapidly," Harrison wrote in a June 22 presentation to members of Congress titled, "Exceeding Expectations, Solyndra Today." Harrison said sales, which were said to be double 2010 revenue of $140 million, were picking up, selling more than 10,000 panels a week, or enough to power 500 homes, according to the presentation obtained by California Watch.

Then there's this from the Bay Citizen:

Before he became Solyndra's chief financial officer, Wilbur G. Stover was at the center of one of the largest price-fixing scandals in U.S. history. From 1994 to 2007, Stover was CFO of Micron Technologies Inc., a maker of computer memory chips. During that time, the Justice Department investigated Micron and four other companies for colluding to drive up the price of memory in violation of federal antitrust laws. "This was a big deal case," said Robert Lande, a law professor at Baltimore University who has written extensively on the case. "It was price-fixing on a crucial component that everybody uses, and they got together and fixed prices in what was a blatant violation of antitrust laws."

Stover, who as Solyndra CFO had a compensation package of $831,000 in salary, bonuses and benefits, is managing the company's bankruptcy proceedings.

"It's certainly a cause for concern" to see Stover connected to a second company under investigation, said Joseph Harrington, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University who has studied the Micron case. "If you start seeing mutually reinforcing evidence that the same person was on the scene when something bad happened, you start to think things aren't independent of one another."

The NYT also weighs in with a lengthy piece about the White House being asleep at the switch.

The government's backing of Solyndra, which could cost taxpayers more than a half-billion dollars, came as the politically well-connected business began an extensive lobbying campaign that appears to have blinded government officials to the company's financial condition and the risks of the investment, according to a review of government documents and interviews with administration officials and industry analysts. While no evidence has emerged that political favoritism played a role in what administration officials assert were merit-based decisions, Solyndra drew plenty of high-level attention. Its lobbyists corresponded frequently and met at least three times with an aide to a top White House official, Valerie B. Jarrett, to push for loans, tax breaks and other government assistance.

All administrations have scandals. It's just that this one has no safety net when one comes along, as is clearly happening here.