The Solyndra solar energy company, which received more than half a billion in federal loans before unexpectedly declaring bankruptcy last week, got a surprise of its own today when FBI officials raided its Fremont, Calif., offices.

Peter Lee, a spokesman at the FBI's San Francisco office, said agents executed multiple search warrants this morning at Solyndra's plant and headquarters building. As of this afternoon, he said, agents were still at the scene.

Lee declined to provide any details on the purpose of the search, other than to confirm that it is part of a joint investigation with the Department of Energy's inspector general. The IG's office was similarly tight-lipped.

"We can confirm the involvement of OIG special agents," an IG spokeswoman said. "We have no further comment."

A company spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that the raid was a "total surprise." Officials on Capitol Hill who are part of an ongoing inquiry into the company and DOE's controversial loan guarantee program also said they were unaware of the parallel FBI/DOE IG investigation.

The news comes at an inopportune time for the White House as President Obama prepares to give a much-anticipated speech tonight to a joint session of Congress on how to jump-start a floundering jobs market.

The program through which Solyndra received its $535 million loan was financed in part through Obama's controversial economic stimulus program. Obama also traveled to Solyndra's California facility last year to praise the company for helping to spur job creation from clean energy products (Greenwire, July 6, 2010).

"Solyndra's bankruptcy is another example of the waste that results when government officials try to play stock broker with the public's money, and it casts a very unflattering light on the rest of DOE's loan guarantees, along with all 2009 stimulus spending," said Tom Schatz, president of the taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, in a release this week. "If this is the Obama administration's idea of how America can 'invest' in its economic recovery, taxpayers would much rather keep the money and do it themselves."

House Republicans also view Solyndra as a symbol of what has gone wrong with DOE's loan guarantee program and Obama's job creation effort.

"The FBI raid further underscores that Solyndra was a bad bet from the beginning and put taxpayers at unnecessary risk," said House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) in a statement this afternoon. "President Obama's signature green jobs program went from a darling of the administration, to bankruptcy, to now the subject of an FBI raid in a matter of days."

Throughout their investigation, Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee have expressed concern that Solyndra's loan, which underwent a review by the Office of Management and Budget, was made with political motives in mind. Republicans have questioned the connection between Solyndra and a top Obama fundraiser, George Kaiser, who is part of an investment group that owned a large share of the company.

But nearly half a year into their review, lawmakers say they still don't have a clear picture of what happened on the Solyndra deal and are accusing OMB of intentionally blocking their investigation by withholding documents from the committee.

"Over the last six months, our investigation has encountered a number of needless partisan roadblocks and repeated pushback, protest, and even misleading claims on Solyndra's viability by administration officials, company executives, and congressional Democrats," Upton and Stearns said today. "There is much to learn as the investigation moves forward, and it is imperative that the American taxpayers are not paying the price for the sins of Solyndra."

Hearing on tap

Republican leaders on the committee have called a hearing for Wednesday in which they have requested OMB Deputy Director for Management Jeff Zients to testify. Zients was called to testify at a previous hearing in June but did not attend, claiming he had a prior commitment.

A spokeswoman for OMB said Zients does plan to attend next week's hearing.

Other witnesses invited to testify at the hearing include Jonathan Silver, executive director of the DOE Loans Programs Office, and Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison and Chief Financial Officer Bill Stover.

Less than two months ago, Harrison came to Washington on a public relations tour to tell Congress and the media that Solyndra's dark days were behind it.

After taking in $140 million in revenue last year, the company had already had its two best quarters ever in the first half of 2011, Harrison said at a news event arranged by a Washington, D.C., consulting firm. Harrison said the company expected to double its total 2010 shipments by the end of this year.

"Good companies adapt to the marketplace, and that's what we've done," he said.

Six weeks later, the solar module maker shut down and fired most of its 1,100-plus employees. A spokesman for the Washington, D.C., consulting firm that arranged Harrison's visit said today that the group no longer has a business relationship with Solyndra.

Upton and Stearns said today Harrison "misrepresented the company's financial situation" in that visit.

Before today's raid, Solyndra had scheduled a workforce training session for tomorrow to help its former employees find new positions. But some employees remain upset with how Solyndra decided to shutter its operation.

One of Solyndra's former engineers, Peter Kohlstadt, has filed suit in U.S. district court in California charging that employees were not properly notified about the looming shutdown and seeking unpaid wages, holiday pay, retirement benefits and health care coverage.

A lawyer representing Kohlstadt said this afternoon that his client had no information on the basis of today's FBI raid.