Solyndra scandal takes shape

Here's Megan Mcardle over at the Atlantic:

But these days, the real scandal is starting to look like . . . real scandal.  Contrary to earlier White House denials, we recently found out that major Obama fundraiser George Kaiser does indeed seem to have discussed Solyndra with members of the administration (In fairness, it was after the loan had closed.  However, given that there were ongoing approvals required for disbursements, and later, for modifications in the loan, this is not very comforting.)
Meanwhile, Hoover's Peter Schweizer's new book claims that 80% of the loans in the DOE program that Solyndra tapped went to companies owned or run by Obama backers.  Of course, one would expect that most "green energy" types would be enthusiastic Democrats.  Still, the thing has a certain whiff about it.
Then today we learn that Solyndra, which was originally going to announce layoffs in late October 2010, held off on the announcement until November 3rd (aka election day).  And they seem to have done so at the behest of the White House.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu was on NPR this afternoon and an exasperated Melissa Block tried to get a handle on how a half-billion dollars went up in sunshine while independent accounting firms and the Office of Management and Budget were throwing up red flags.

Unintentional humor update - A Solyndra adviser writes: "They [DOE] did push very hard for us to hold our announcement of the consolidation to employees and vendors to Nov. 3rd – oddly they didn’t give a reason for that date."  That is most peculiar!