First consideration for loan repayments ahead of taxpayers. in fact my argument that it s illegal has been buttressed by the chief financial officer for the treasury under testimony under oath indicated in his 28 years experience working at the treasury he has never seen a subject bored nation of taxpayer loans to outside loans like the department of energy did with solyndra. reporter: democrats maintain the subpoena amounts to a fishing expedition. we never under any circumstances with democratic or republican presidents resorted to a subpoena when we could get the information we wanted without disrupting the balance between the executive and legislative branch. reporter: the democrats suggested yesterday the white house may make a claim of executive privilege. if the white house refuses to release the solyndra document
You know, they promised all these green jobs, they use these loans to private interests, 40 billion, i think, in this energy department program, and they ve got, what, 4,000 jobs, $10 million per job to show for it? so the to the extent this dominates the discussion with no jobs to show for it, i think it s a big problem. gregg: even maxine waters and emanuel cleaver, two pretty important democrats on capitol hill, have called the president s signature green initiative a failure. there s yet another company out in california that s got similar problems. i think you re seeing, you re going to see a lot of problems with companies that got into this solar business and got taxpayer loans and aren t doing well because it s a very tough business. the technology, there s a lot of competition from china and elsewhere, and the government was handing out these loans quite liberally. and be they go, if they don t succeed, then the taxpayers pick up the tab. if they do succeed, the
Investigators want more from the house. last night the committee on energy and commerce released a letter saying, quote: reporter: it wants information dating all the way back, now, to president obama s inauguration day. in an accompanying statement, committee chairman cliff sterns said documents reveal a startling relationship: reporter: now, this follows the release late last week of e-mails that revealed the department of energy wanted to give solyndra a second loan even as it became clear that the company s financial solvency was precarious. in his press conference today, president obama again defended the taxpayer loans to solyndra. if we are going to be able to compete in the 21st century, then we ve got to dominate cutting-edge technologies, we ve got to dominate cutting-edge
Government operations but he is stripping out the offsets, the cuts that would have come with this funding, some of it paid for was going to pay for green vehicles, some of it would have paid for solyndra-type loan programs, those are the cuts that have been taken out of the senate bill. the senate we understand is going to vote on monday. harry reid needs 60 votes to pass it. mitch mcconnell the republican leader doesn t think he s going to get those votes. so the arguing and the high stakes poker goes on in the u.s. senate. also, look for some fireworks on the house tphr-r in the next 15 minutes or so coming up in between steny hoyer the democratic whip in the house and also eric cantor, the republican majority leader. jenna: on that you mentioned green energy. top executives of a solar energy company that burned through half a billion dollars in taxpayer loans, otherwise known as solyndra refusing to answer questions on capitol hill today. the pressure is building on the white house
Eastboundtives today went back on their pledge to reveal what happened with the taxpayer loans and instead plead the fifth during a hearing on capitol hill. in my experience if the department of justice, the treasury inspector general, the department of energy inspector general, congress and the fbi are all looking into something, there is probably something going on. and skwrao kim i want to take n executivesndra eck today pleading the fifth and get your taken to. i want to ask mr. harrison if he thinks the american people who invested over half a billion dollars deserve to know what happened to that money. on the advice of my counsel i invoke the privilege afforded to me by the fifth amendment of the constitution and respectfully decline to answer any questions. knowing the financial conditions of the company in mid july were you aware of mr. harrison coming to congress and paying such a rosy picture of the company. i respectfully decline to