A day before President Obama's now-infamous visit to the Solyndra solar tube manufacturing plant in May 2010, top White House officials and at least one key political donor were having second thoughts, documents released today by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee show.

Steve Westly, a major Obama fundraiser and former California state controller who also serves on a government energy panel that advises Energy Secretary Steven Chu, sent an email to top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett on May 24 noting his concern with the next day's visit to the solar energy company.

SPECIAL REPORT

Solyndra, a solar manufacturer that was given a $535 million loan guarantee and touted by the White House as a model for the clean energy economy, has filed for bankruptcy. E&E examines how it got there and what it means. Click here to read the report.

"Many of us believe the company's cost structure will make it difficult for them to survive long term," Westly wrote, according to a memorandum summarizing some 700 pages of documents turned over to the committee by the Office of Management and Budget and the White House on Friday as part of an ongoing congressional investigation into the defunct solar energy company, which received over half a billion dollars in government loans.

"I just want to help protect the president from anything that could result in negative or unfair press," Westly wrote. "If it's too late to change/postpone the meeting, the president should be careful about unrealistic/optimistic forecasts that could haunt him in the next 18 months if Solyndra hits the wall, files for bankruptcy, etc."

Jarrett contacted Ron Klain, who was then chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, who reached out to the Department of Energy to question top officials there once again about Solyndra's viability.

"The company should be strong going into the fall with their new facilities on line," one DOE staffer said in response to the inquiry.

"Bottom line is that we believe the company is okay in the medium term, but will need some help of one kind or another down the road," DOE chief of staff Rod O'Connor wrote back to Klain.

But that was a far rosier assessment than had been reached by OMB, which had overseen the review of Solyndra's credit subsidy score as part of the loan guarantee program.

When one OMB official heard about the president's visit to Solyndra, the staffer sent a co-worker an email saying "hope [Solyndra] doesn't default before then."

In an internal email between OMB staffers seven weeks earlier, the pessimism about Solyndra was just as pronounced.

One staffer said in an email that DOE seemed "completely oblivious" to the possibility of a Solyndra default.

In a separate email exchange that day, an OMB official said that DOE's problems extended beyond Solyndra to the entire loan program.

"What's terrifying is that after looking at some of the ones that came next, this one started to look better. ... Bad days are coming," the OMB staffer wrote.

But on May 24, Klain appeared content with the DOE response he received and recommended to Jarrett that Obama go ahead with the next day's event.

"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 that we want to help promote cutting edge, new economy industries," Klain wrote.

GOP demands Chu testimony

According to the Democratic memo, the documents may not paint a pretty picture of DOE's loan program, but they show that decisions involving Solyndra were made on the merits of the project and not, as some Republicans have suggested, based on the political implications.

The documents show that "there was vigorous internal debate among officials at the Department of Energy and the Office of Management and Budget about the Solyndra loan guarantee [and that] this debate was appropriately elevated to senior officials in the White House," Democratic staffers at the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote in their memo today.

"In hindsight, it is apparent that the predictions of officials at OMB about Solyndra were right and those of the officials at DOE were wrong," the memo states. "But that does not mean the decision to rely on DOE's advice was wrong at the time."

DOE spokesman Damien LaVera released a statement this afternoon saying that the emails released by House Democrats today show that the administration was aware of the inherent risks associated with the cutting-edge projects that the loan program was created to fund.

"As we have consistently said, there was a thoughtful and appropriate debate within the administration and decisions were made solely on the merits of the project," LaVera said.

But committee Republicans accused Democrats of releasing the documents today as part of a damage control campaign over a scandal that has turned into a major political headache for the Obama administration.

"Documents gathered during the Committee's investigation reveal those closest to the President in the West Wing, advisors like Jarrett, [former National Economic Council director Larry] Summers, Klain, and [former chief of staff Rahm] Emmanuel had direct involvement in the Solyndra mess, and that the Administration was fully aware of numerous red flags about Solyndra's viability, but pressed ahead anyway in an effort to secure a policy or political victory," Rep. Cliff Stearns, who is leading the committee investigation, said in a release today.

"The Democrats deny that any political influence was involved, yet in their own memo they highlight the role of Obama fundraiser Steve Westly in the discussions," Stearns said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), who also serves on Stearns' investigations subcommittee, took to the House floor today to call on Chu to appear before the committee.

"Most Americans by now are becoming aware of the Solyndra story," Burgess said. "This is a story that is yet to be completely understood. ... It's time for the secretary of Energy to come before our committee, explain what he knew about this process and clear the air once and for all for the American people."

Click here to read the documents the Democrats released.