Remember Brian Harrison, who ran the Solyndra scam and walked away rich? Well, he’s back, and Biden is giving him $6.6 billion in grant money to make computer chips, about which he knows little.
Solyndra was an Obama scandal.
Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC’s Arizona subsidiary, whose president is former Solyndra head Brian Harrison, will receive $6.6 billion to build a factory in Phoenix, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announced Monday, Free Beacon reports.
According to the Beacon, Harrison was CEO of Solyndra when it declared bankruptcy in 2011 after receiving over $500 million in loans from the Obama administration.
Billions of dollars in Biden energy spending have gone to bankrupt companies ornearly bankrupt companies and their losing CEOs.
“Thanks to this investment, TSMC will also build a third chip factory in Phoenix, increasing its total investment in Arizona to $65 million and creating over 25,000 direct construction and manufacturing jobs, along with thousands of indirect jobs,” Biden said.
Biden wants to pick winners and losers, and he’s terrible at it.
The Solyndra Scandal
An investigation found that some customers had asked for and were given orders at discounted prices and for much lower volumes than the contracts stated. Still, other customers had no future business commitment to Solyndra. The $1.4 billion, and later $2 billion, weren’t booked revenues; they were aspirational contracts that weren’t binding.
The report says, “The company internally forecasted that contract customers collectively wanted to purchase more than $700 million less volume than that exhibited in the sales contracts.”
One Solyndra customer who ended up buying lower volumes of discounted solar panels told investigators that Solyndra assured them through a side verbal agreement that his company wouldn’t have to buy the high volume stated in the contract.
When the DOE asked Solyndra officials about any updates on sales contracts, Solyndra officials said there weren’t any, says the report. Solyndra officials told the same information to the credit rating firm Fitch, which led to a credit rating based on the inaccurate information.
No One Was Punished or Had to Make Restitution
Solyndra officials were, at best, reckless and irresponsible or, at worst, an orchestrated effort to knowingly and intentionally deceive and mislead the Department.
The DOE decided not to pursue criminal charges.
Harrison resigned in 2011, just before the fall, and reportedly took a lot of money with him. The Solyndra executives were big Democrat bundlers, especially to Barack Obama. During a hearing, they either didn’t show up or, in Harrison’s case, he took the Fifth.
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