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Paul Chinn/AP - In this May 26, 2010, photo, President Obama, center, is given a tour of Solyndra by Executive Vice President Ben Bierman, right, as Chief Executive Officer Chris Gronet, left, walks along at Solyndra Inc. in Fremont, Calif.
Text SizePrintE-mailReprints By Carol D. Leonnig, An investment firm whose vice chairman has been an adviser and fundraiser for President Obama saw one of its portfolio companies win approval this year for $50 million in loans from the administration’s clean-energy loan program.
Washington-based Perseus says its affiliation with James A. Johnson, a major fundraiser for Obama’s campaign, played no role in persuading the Energy Department to award the loan to Vehicle Production Group, a Miami start-up that is manufacturing wheelchair-accessible cars and taxis.
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?Solyndra, a California solar company backed by a half-billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Obama administration, announced it was shutting its doors and laying off 1,100 employees.Gallery
?President Obama announced a new Advanced Manufacturing Partnership that will bring together manufacturing companies, universities and the government to help create high-tech products that can be manufactured in former steel mills, an effort to help create jobs. Here are some of the manufacturing plants he visited.More on this StoryRead more on PostPolitics.comObama launches new efforts ahead of 2012 racePerry: Tuition program prevents ‘tax wasters’White House orders independent review of Solyndra loansView all Items in this StoryJustice Dept.: Muffins weren’t $16 after allMitt Romney: Unstoppable in New Hampshire?FACT CHECKER: Bogus claims that keep getting repeatedBoehner: I won’t endorse in primaryPolitical wives: Rules of the roadObama bundler connected to company winning $50M loanJohnson headed Obama’s vice presidential selection committee in 2008 and is the former chairman of housing mortgage giant Fannie Mae. He was listed as a campaign fundraising bundler for Obama in the 2008 race, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and committed to raising $200,000 to $500,000 for the upcoming presidential race.
Johnson could not be reached for comment Thursday. Perseus Chairman Frank Pearl said in an interview that it is an “absurd idea” to think that Johnson’s political connections helped the Miami company.
“I doubt there was anybody at DOE that even considered the fact that Jim was part of this firm. We went straight through the proper channels of the [loan] program,” he said.
Department spokesman Damien LaVera said in a statement Thursday that “the decision to provide the Vehicle Production Group a loan was made based on the merits after more than two years of review by officials in the DOE loan program.”
Republicans have criticized the administration for what they say is a pattern of loan assistance going to politically connected clean-energy companies. Recently, they expanded their investigations of loan guarantees to other companies whose investors include Democratic contributors.
Both the White House and the Energy Department have said that no such pattern exists and that all decisions were decided on merit.
A nine-month House investigation of the loan guarantee program has largely focused on the Obama administration’s first clean-energy loan: $535 million to solar start-up Solyndra, a now-shuttered company whose lead investors were funds tied to George Kaiser, an Obama fundraising bundler and Tulsa billionaire.
The Energy Department ignored numerous warnings that the company’s finances were shaky and rushed to approve the Solyndra loan; now taxpayers are obligated to repay the money. The head of the loan program, Jonathan Silver, resigned this month, weeks after the head of the House investigative committee called for him to be fired.
In recent weeks, Republican lawmakers have widened their scope to more deeply probe $1 billion in loans approved by the same program to electric auto makers Fisker Automotive and Tesla Motors.
On Wednesday, a congressional committee chairman asked the Energy Department for documents concerning its decision to offer a $730 million loan to a U.S. subsidiary of a steel-making company run by the second-richest man in Russia.
The loan was for Severstal’s North American operation to upgrade a Dearborn, Mich., plant to supply the auto industry. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on?Oversight and Government Reform, asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu to explain why the firm merited taxpayer-backed financing considering the financial mishaps and global standing of its parent company.
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