Solyndra: Rahm Emanuel, Emails, and Energy Secretary on Hot Seat

For those who are eagerly awaiting the December 8th grilling of Attorney General Eric Holder by members of the House Judiciary Committee - of which Rep. Darrell Issa is one - there is another hearing tomorrow that may tide you over a bit. Energy Secretary Steven Chu will be testifying in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on November 18th about his role in the Solyndra scandal. Two days before the scheduled hearing, the White House released emails that show Solyndra was pressured by the Energy Department to delay layoff announcements until after the 2010 elections and the committee is combing through them.

Via Washington Post:

The Obama administration, which gave the solar company Solyndra a half-billion-dollar loan to help create jobs, asked the company to delay announcing it would lay off workers until after the hotly contested November 2010 midterm elections that imperiled Democratic control of Congress, newly released e-mails show.

The announcement could have been politically damaging because President Obama and others in the administration had held up Solyndra as a poster child of its clean-energy initiative, saying the company’s new factory, built with the help of stimulus money, could create 1,000 jobs. Six months before the midterm elections, Obama visited Solyndra’s California plant to praise its success, even though outside auditors had questioned whether the operation might collapse in debt.

As the contentious 2010 elections approached, Solyndra found itself foundering, and it warned the Energy Department that it would need an emergency cash infusion. A Solyndra investment adviser wrote in an Oct. 30, 2010, e-mail — without explaining the reason — that Energy Department officials were pushing “very hard” to delay making the layoffs public until the day after the elections.

The announcement ultimately was made on Nov. 3, 2010 — immediately following the Nov. 2 vote.

E-mails describing the events were released Tuesday as part of a House Energy and Commerce Committee memo, provided in advance of Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s scheduled testimony before the committee’s investigative panel on Thursday. As a result of the 2010 elections, that committee is now controlled by Republicans, whose aggressive nine-month investigation into Solyndra has focused partly on whether politics played a role in the company’s selection to receive a federal loan.

It isn't just Chu's Department that is implicated in these emails either. Former Obama Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel is as well. In fact, he should be called to testify about what he knew at some point because his lack of memory relative to Solyndra may be more suspicious than Eric Holder denying any knowledge of Fast and Furious until a "few weeks" before May 3rd.

Unlike Holder, there are emails that apparently implicate Emanuel directly in the decision to press the president into publicly announcing the Solyndra loan. What makes this even more explosive is Emanuel repeatedly pleading ignorance when it comes to his role.

Click HERE to hear Emanuel say in September of this year that he doesn't "know" or "remember" the Solyndra deal. WLS confronted Emanuel again relative to these new revelations in emails that named him. Click HERE.

h/t Michelle Malkin