WASHINGTON — The White House Counsel’s Office has formally rejected a congressional subpoena of documents relating to the $535 million loan guarantee that the administration shepherded for Solyndra, the now-defunct solar energy company.
In a letter to the chairs of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, Kathryn H. Ruemmler, counsel to the president, calls the request for documents made by House Republicans a “vast fishing expedition” and a “significant intrusion on Executive Branch interests.”
“As written, [the subpoena] encompasses all communications within the White House from the beginning of this Administration to the present that refer or relate to Solyndra, and the subpoena purports to demand a complete response in less than a week,” Ruemmler writes. “Thus, any document that references Solyndra, even in passing, is arguably responsive to the Committee’s request, and you reaffirmed this week that you intend for the request to be that broad. There is no basis for such a broad request beyond a “vast fishing expedition,” as Congressman Dingell noted yesterday. Moreover, 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 is itself an unreasonable burden on the President’s ability to meet his constitutional duties.”
Finally, Obama shows a little backbone. The Bush administration LOST billions of dollars in defense spending and there was never an investigation. There was never a serious investigation into how the Bush administration got the intelligence so wrong in the rationale for going to war in Iraq. And the Bush administration claimed executive privilege for matters regarding the politicization of our justice department. But this is different because it involves spending money to make our country better and Republicans hate doing that because it’s “SOCIALISM!”
DRUDGE RETORT 
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