Solyndra watchers got one more chance to sort through emails as Republican investigators released another 187 pages of documents ahead of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's much-anticipated appearance tomorrow before a House investigations subpanel.

The Department of Energy documents that Republicans released this morning paint the picture of an Energy secretary who had his priorities wrong on Solyndra even before his agency issued its half-billion-dollar loan guarantee to the now-bankrupt solar energy company. Republicans believe that those misplaced priorities were the result of political pressure from a White House that was more concerned with helping out its political allies and donors than with allowing career federal staffers to do their jobs properly.

The emails released today trace the Solyndra saga back to a new policy instituted by Chu when he arrived at the agency in 2009 to accelerate issuance of loan guarantees. Republicans say there's clear evidence that the policy was implemented at the expense of proper due diligence on those loans.

In one email, a DOE staff member expressed concern about statements Chu made to Dow Jones Newswires on July 7, 2009, that "'we've been told' that [the Solyndra loan] 'is imminent they're going to announce this'" and that "'the loan is theirs, as soon as they get the additional capital that's required by statute.'"

The staffer had "no idea where [the secretary's] info on the equity raise is coming from, but the conclusion that 'the loan is theirs' doesn't help our negotiation."

The staffer wrote that "this nonsense has got to stop."

Another email dated just weeks before DOE decided to implement a controversial loan restructuring earlier this year in order to bail out the failing company indicates that DOE brass had, even at that late time, turned a deaf ear to those within the administration who were waving red flags about Solyndra.

One staffer at the Office of Management and Budget noted that while a decision had been made not to include the office in discussion about what to do with Solyndra, OMB Director Jacob Lew should make the point to Chu that while "the company may avoid default with a restructuring, there is also a good chance it will not."

In the end, OMB's predictions proved correct.

After a last-ditch effort to work out a new loan deal between Solyndra its investors and DOE on Aug. 26, the agency finally decided to pull the plug on the sinking company, and Solyndra filed for bankruptcy five days later.

In their pre-hearing memo, committee Republicans laid out three areas of questioning that they will seek answers from Chu on: How did the stimulus and Chu's directive to accelerate the review of loan guarantee applications affect the review of the Solyndra application? Should DOE have better anticipated the financial problems that Solyndra experienced? And did DOE take adequate steps to protect the taxpayer when it negotiated the terms and conditions of the Solyndra guarantee and its restructuring?

"Although several red flags were raised over Solyndra's financial stability, the Department of Energy and the White House decided to put taxpayer funds at risk," Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, said in a statement today. "In addition, during the restructuring of the Solyndra loan the Department of Energy allowed the subordination of taxpayers to two commercial firms, in violation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. I look forward to asking Secretary Chu why these warnings were ignored and why taxpayers were put behind two hedge firms."

Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said today that Chu, who had offered to appear before the committee last month, is glad to be able to offer his insight into both Solyndra and the larger renewable energy loan program effort.

"The secretary looks forward to meeting with the committee to discuss the choice we face in competing for the clean-energy jobs of tomorrow, which will be worth trillions of dollars in the coming decades," LaVera said. "The question is simple: Do we want those products to be invented in America, made in America and sold around the world -- or are we going to wave the white flag and concede defeat? The secretary believes we can compete for and win the clean-energy race and looks forward to making his case to Congress."