Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee today rolled out what they maintain is a smoking gun linking a top Obama fundraiser and the administration's decision to proceed with the ill-fated Solyndra loan guarantee.

Eleven emails released today by Republicans indicate fundraiser George Kaiser and several top lieutenants in his venture capital firm and private foundation were keenly interested in the Solyndra deal and were in contact with key Obama administration officials about the solar energy company as early as February 2010.

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.

In one email, Ken Levit, executive director of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, describes a meeting he had in Vice President Joe Biden's office in which Solyndra came up in a discussion with a team working on stimulus issues.

The meeting took place five months after the Department of Energy formally issued its $535 million loan guarantee but three months before President Obama made his now infamous trip to the company's California plant to tout Solyndra.

Levit told Mitchell that the group he met were "big fans" of Solyndra.

"They about had an orgasm in Biden's office when we mentioned Solyndra," Levit wrote in an email to Steve Mitchell, who worked at Kaiser's venture capital firm Argonaut Ventures.

Kaiser's firm was a major backer of the Solyndra project and a chief beneficiary of a controversial loan-restructuring deal earlier this year that subordinated the government's loan behind new money put in by private investors.

While Kaiser has been a frequent visitor to the White House since Obama's election, his foundation has released statements saying he never participated in any discussions with the U.S. government regarding the half-billion-dollar DOE loan to Solyndra.

The White House has also repeatedly said that no political influence was brought to bear on the Solyndra deal and that all decisions regarding the loan were made by career staffers at DOE.

But a March 5, 2010, conversation between Kaiser, Mitchell, Levit and others whose names have been redacted seems to indicate some level of contact between Kaiser and the White House about the deal.

Mitchell wrote to Kaiser and Levit that day to tell them about a conversation he had with Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet about the possibility of the company receiving a second loan guarantee.

"It appears things are headed in the right direction and [Energy Secretary Steven] Chu is apparently staying involved in Solyndra's application and continues to talk up the company as a success story," he wrote.

Kaiser replied that "a couple weeks ago when Ken and I were visiting with a group of Administration folks in DC who are in charge of the Stimulus process (White House, not DOE) and Solyndra came up, every one of them responded simultaneously about their thorough knowledge of the Solyndra story, suggesting it was one of their prime poster children."

In an exchange on Oct. 6, 2010, Kaiser and Mitchell discuss an upcoming meeting Mitchell has scheduled with the White House to discuss getting Solyndra's loan revised and possibly selling Solyndra panels to the government.

"I question the assumption that [the White House] is the path to pursue when both of your issues are with DOE," Kaiser wrote. "I doubt whether [interim White House chief of staff Pete Rouse or top White House energy and environmental adviser Carol Browner] would intervene and, if they did, I am concerned that DOE/Chu would resent the intervention and your problem could get more difficult. I would see an appeal as only a last resort and, even then, questionable."

Mitchell responded that he understood.

The White House "offered to help in the past and we do have a contact within the [White House] that we are working with," he wrote. "I think the company is hoping that we have some unnatural relationship that can open bigger doors -- I've cautioned them that no one really has those relationships anymore."

White House response

White House spokesman Eric Schultz pointed to that exchange this afternoon in blasting Republican investigators.

"Even the documents cherry-picked by House Republicans today affirm what we have said all along: This loan was a decision made on the merits at the Department of Energy," Schultz said. "Nothing in the 85,000 pages of documents produced thus far by the administration or in these four indicate any favoritism to political supporters. We wish that House Republicans were as zealous about creating jobs as they were about this oversight investigation."

Kaiser Foundation spokesman Renzi Stone said today that the organization stands by its earlier statements.

"To reaffirm our previous public statements, George Kaiser had no discussions with the government regarding the loan to Solyndra," Stone said.

Energy and Commerce Democrats also blasted today’s release in a letter this afternoon in which they revealed that Kaiser had voluntarily made himself available for an interview with Committee investigators this week.

Ranking member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said in their letter that the selected e-mails released today present “a misleading and inaccurate account” to the public.

“At your request, George Kaiser was interviewed by Committee staff yesterday for two hours. Many e-mails were presented to Mr. Kaiser for his comment, including some of the e-mails you released,” Waxman and DeGette wrote. “ In key instances, he directly contradicted your interpretations of the documents you released today. But you also failed to disclose this. This is wrong and an unfair smear of Mr. Kaiser.”

The latest document dump comes a day before the deadline that Republicans have set for the White House to respond to a subpoena issued last week for all White House documents relating to the Solyndra deal dating back to the first day of the Obama administration.

White House legal counsel Kathryn Reummler has said that the request is "over broad" and "unprecedented."

Ruemmler said such a request would, for example, require the White House to produce thousands of pages of news clips that would serve no purpose for Congress.

"Responding to such an expansive request would require the devotion of substantial resources to gather and review many documents that are of no legitimate oversight interest -- which is itself an unreasonable burden on the President's ability to meet his constitutional duties," she wrote in a letter to the committee last week.

But Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and his top investigator, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), said in a letter to Ruemmler today that it is the White House's own fault that the request has not been narrowed.

"Since October 5, 2011, when it received the most recent document request, the White House has not provided any factual information that would inform the committee's ability to craft the details of a document production schedule or instructions," panel Republicans wrote in a press release. "The committee expects to see good faith efforts of compliance by the White House before the November 10, 2011 deadline."