Solyndra execs to take 5th, refuse to testify before House panel

 
Solyndra Inc.'s chief executive officer and chief financial officer will invoke their 5th Amendment rights and not answer questions during a Friday hearing before a House investigative committee, their attorneys said.

Attorneys for Solyndra Chief Executive Brian Harrison and W.G. “Bill” Stover, the company’s chief financial officer, sent letters to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigative subcommittee Tuesday saying the two executives would not answer any questions during the hearing.

“I have advised Mr. Harrison that he should decline to answer questions put to him by this subcommittee based on his rights under the Fifth Amendment,” Harrison’s attorney, Walter F. Brown Jr., said in a letter to Rep. Clifford B. Stearns (R-Fla.), the committee’s chairman, and Rep. Diane DeGette (D-Colo.).

“This is not a decision arrived at lightly, but it is a decision dictated by current circumstances,” Brown said in the letter.

Agents with the FBI and Energy Department’s inspector general executed a search warrant at Solyndra’s Fremont headquarters on Sept. 8, two days after the company declared bankruptcy despite receiving $528 million in federal loans. The FBI and Energy Department have declined to say what prompted the investigation or who it is targeting.

Stover's attorney, Jan Nielsen Little, said in a letter to the committee that the criminal investigations prompted the decision for Stover to decline to testify. Stover still intends to appear at the hearing, Little said.

"Under these circumstances, Mr. Stover must invoke his rights under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution," Little wrote. "It would be irresponsible for anyone in his position not to do so."

Solyndra was the first recipient of Energy Department loans under the Obama administration intended to spur economic growth and create jobs through investments in green technology. To date it is the only DOE loan recipient to cease operations.

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--Stuart Pfeifer

Photo: FBI agents leave Solyndra with boxes of records during Sept. 8 search Credit: Associated Press