Obama administration officials helped steer billions of dollars in federal grants from the Department of Energy to companies they once worked with, the Washington Post discovered.
According to a Post investigation, $3.9 billion in federal grants and financing from the Department of Energy went "to 21 companies backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers."
Obama’s program to invest federal funds in start-up companies — and the failure of some of those companies — is becoming a rallying cry for opponents in the presidential race. Mitt Romney has promised to focus on Obama’s "record" as a "venture capitalist." And in ads and speeches, conservative groups and the Republican candidates are zeroing in on the administration’s decision to extend $535 million to the now-shutteredsolar firm Solyndra and billions of dollars more to clean-tech start-ups backed by the president’s political allies.
White House officials stress that staffers and advisers with venture capital ties did not make funding decisions related to these companies. But e-mails released in a congressional probe of Obama’s clean-tech program show that staff and advisers with links to venture firms informally advocated for some of those companies.