Judicial Watch Sues for Solyndra Records of President Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Department of Energy to obtain records of communications between Ron Klain, who is now President Biden’s chief of staff, and the agencies about Solyndra (Judicial Watch v. Office of Management and Budget et al.(No. 1:21-cv-00303)).

The lawsuit was filed after the agencies failed to respond to December 2020 FOIA requests seeking “communications between Klain and any official of the Office of Management and Budget/Department of Energy regarding the solar company Solyndra.” Judicial Watch requested records from the time period of January 20, 2009, to January 1, 2011, when Klain was chief of staff to then-Vice President Biden.

In 2011, internal emails reportedly uncovered by investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee show the Obama administration was monitoring the progress of the $535 million taxpayer loan, “even as analysts were voicing serious concerns about the risk involved.”

“This deal is NOT ready for prime time,” one White House budget analyst wrote in a March 10, 2009 email, nine days before the administration formally announced the loan.

“If you guys think this is a bad idea, I need to unwind the W[est] W[ing] QUICKLY,” wrote Ronald A. Klain, who was chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, in another email sent March 7, 2009. The “West Wing” is the portion of the White House complex that holds the offices of the president and his top staffers.

White House energy adviser Heather Zichal reportedly e-mailed a warning to Klain, Obama aide Valerie Jarrett and Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer: “Here’s the deal: Solyndra is going to announce they are laying off 200 of their 1,200 workers. No es bueno.”

Klain was instrumental in getting President Obama to visit Solyndra. He reportedly wrote to Jarrett:

Sounds like there are some risk factors here, but that’s true of any innovative company POTUS would visit. It looks OK to me. … The reality is that if POTUS visited 10 such places over the next 10 months, probably a few will be belly-up by election day 2012—but that to me is the reality of saying we want to help promote cutting-edge, new-economy industries.

Solyndra later went bankrupt.

“Solyndra is one of the worst scandals of the Obama era – and Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, is implicated,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The issue is fresh again given the new administration’s plans to fund more Solyndra-type companies with countless tax dollars.”

In December 2011, Judicial Watch filed separate FOIA lawsuits against the Obama Department of Energy and the Office of Management and Budget to obtain records regarding the taxpayer funded government loan provided to Solyndra. 

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