Abound: When “infinity” translates to 18 months

The 9News interview between Kyle Clark and President Obama is one of the “emperor has no clothes” moments in which the President has found himself embroiled over the past month or so.  In addition to grilling the President on whether or not consulate staff in Libya was denied help during the Benghazi attack, Clark also asked him about the political favors he may have granted Abound.  Revealing Politics has released a new video highlighting the truth gap between what Obama told Kyle Clark and what Complete Colorado investigative reporter Todd Shepherd discovered in Department of Energy emails.

In the clip above, Obama tells Kyle Clark:

“Well, Kyle, I think that if you look at our record that these loans that are given out by the Department of Energy for clean energy have created jobs all across the country and only about four percent of these loans were going to some very cutting-edge industries that are going to allow us to figure out how to produce energy in a clean, renewable way in the future and create jobs in Colorado and all around the country. And some of them have failed but the vast majority of them are pushing us forward into a clean energy direction. And that’s good for Colorado and good for the country. And these are decisions, by the way, that are made by the Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with politics.” (Peak emphasis)

Unfortunately, the emails uncovered by Shepherd directly contradict this.  Here is a timeline of the emails and the approvals process.

• October 2009: A Pat Stryker first appears in White House visitor logs.
• December 18, 2009: All of Colorado’s Democratic U.S. legislators sign a letter in support of backing the Abound Solar loan.  (See the letter below)
• April 25, 2010: Jim McCrea credit advisor tells Brian Oakley and Renee Sass that he talked with “technical” and “they still have major issues with the transaction.”
• June 24, 2010: McCrea sends an email to Ian Samuels, with the Department of the Treasury, noting “in light of the transactional pressure under which we are all now operating….”
• June 25, 2010: Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Department of Energy loan programs, tells McCrea, “you better let him know that the WH wants to move Abound forward.”
• July 3, 2010: Obama personally announced Abound Solar’s $400 million loan.
• July 4, 2010: Pat Stryker shows up in the White House visitors logs.
• December 14, 2010: Abound Solar announced that the Department of Energy had officially approved their loan application.
• December 18, 2010: Pat Stryker again shows up in the White House visitors logs.
• February 29, 2012: Abound Solar halted production and laid off 70% of its staff.
• June 28, 2012: Abound Solar announced it was shutting down and filing for bankruptcy, which could cost taxpayers $60 million.

As Romney so famously stated in the first debate, “But don’t forget, you put $90 billion, like 50 years’ worth of breaks [to oil and gas], into — into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tester and Ener1. I mean, I had a friend who said you don’t just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers….”  We can probably now add Abound to the growing list of bad President Obama’s bad investments.  HT to Complete Colorado for digging up these emails.

Abound Solar Letters From Colorado’s Congressional Democrats