One of the major players in Solyndra-gate is not a Solyndra executive but an extremely will connected political insider who worked in the Department of Energy. Steve Spinner raised over $500,000 for the Obama campaign and received only an obscure job in DOE. Keeping it in the family, his wife Allison worked for the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati which received $2.4 million from Solyndra. Ms Spinner says she performed no work for Solyndra and was kept away from the Solyndra account to avoid any conflict of interest but her law firm handled the applications of several companies that applied for DOE loans. Viewing her firm's web site one can see she worked for Amyris Inc. and HCL CleanTech. Both firms won DOE loans.
Spinner held the title "loan program advisor," After he left the DOE he went to work for the left leaning think tank, the Center for American Progress where he wrote that he "helped oversee the more than $100 billion of loan guarantee and direct lending authority". Among his other accomplishments: He executed 29 stock trades in energy companies while serving as a DOE adviser and he held shares in at least four companies that received DOE loans.
Spinner said, "What the Secretary really cared about was he wanted us to get the money out fast, he wanted us to pick and select fantastic projects," It maybe a little too soon to fit Spinner for an orange jump suit but expect his name to surface often. Also expect Valerie Jarrett to eventually hire outside counsel. We'll post more on the insiders soon.
Update: Emails released late today (10/7/2011) show Spinner to be actively pushing the Solyndra loan in spite of rescuing himself from said loan.
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