Nobody was talking about criminal activity until Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, Steven Chu’s Department of Energy and Timothy Geithner’s Department of the Treasury started tearing through Solyndra’s files. It’s extremely suspicious that the executive branch has taken such a hot interest in a company none of its highest officials have been briefed on or even claim to remember — an interest that is conveniently timed to interfere with a very productive congressional investigation. Yesterday this interference bore its first fruit as Harrison and Stover used the FBI investigation as a pretext for their refusal to testify. Nocera doesn’t even know what story he’s opining about, let alone what the story means.

Roberts’ declaring the issue a “faux scandal” out of the gate doesn’t invite much response beyond pointing out that the English language has a perfectly good word, “fake,” that you can use in place of “faux.” In fact, if you “drill down” you don’t find Republicans “saying” Solyndra’s poor market prospects were “knowable.” They’re trying to figure out how much of it was known when the Obama Administration committed $535 million of your money to the company. So far, they have been trying to find it out without cooperation from President Obama, Energy Secretary Chu, top advisor Valerie Jarrett, former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel or anybody from DoE or Office of Management and Budget who was actually involved in the loan.