At one point, the messages refer to Solyndra and its operations as “prime poster children” of the stimulus program.

Solyndra’s biggest investor was a fund linked to the family foundation of George Kaiser, a Tulsa billionaire and bundler for Obama’s presidential campaign.

Kaiser was involved in e-mail correspondence with his business colleagues about an upcoming White House meeting to get the administration’s help in selling its panels, and in seeking a second energy department loan, which if awarded would have been in addition to a $535 million loan the company received in 2009.

Kaiser’s representatives have previously said Kaiser did not personally lobby the White House on behalf of Solyndra’s loan. Kaiser’s foundation told the Washington Post on Sept. 2 that Kaiser had no conversations with the administration about the loan and was not involved in the loan process.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said House Republicans are seeking to mislead the public by releasing partial documents suggesting political lobbying by a Solyndra bundler.

“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. 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.”

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a letter Wednesday saying the emails released by Republicans “present a misleading and inaccurate account” and are contradicted by other documents in the Committee’s possession. They stressed that Kaiser was interviewed by Committee staff for two hours on Tuesday, and provided many details about his meetings at the White House, where he said he never advocated for Solyndra.

“This is wrong and an unfair smear of Mr. Kaiser,” ranking Democrats Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) and Diana DeGette (Colorado) said in a letter to Republican leaders of the committee.

“The record before the Committee … does not provide support for the allegations that Mr. Kaiser lobbied the White House for Solyndra,” they wrote. “To the contrary, the evidence the Committee has received to date supports the opposite conclusion: neither Mr. Kaiser nor individuals working for him lobbied the White House or asked White House officials to intervene in agency decisions on behalf of Solyndra.”

Kaiser said in staff interviews that he and his foundation staff contacted congressional leaders about Solyndra, but that he specifically rejected staff requests that he personally contact the White House on the company’s behalf. Kaiser said he also refrained from mentioning Solyndra while seated next to Obama for an extended period at a dinner. Democrats said contemporaneous emails from Kaiser to his staff confirm his assertions, with one stating: ”I never mentioned Solyndra directly.”

Other e-mails confirm that Mr. Kaiser’s position was that Solyndra should do its own lobbying, committee Democrats said.

According to the e-mails released by House Republicans, in October 2010, Kaiser gave explicit instructions to one of his top deputies – also a Solyndra board member – on how to approach the White House for help.

Steven Mitchell, director of a Kaiser-tied equity fund that had heavily invested in Solyndra, was briefing Kaiser on his efforts to lobby Obama administration to help Solyndra as the company was quickly running out of money. The focus of an upcoming White House meeting, he said, was on getting their “assistance in selling panels to the government.”

Kaiser said that was fine, but he cautioned that Mitchell should not directly ask senior White House leaders they had previously contacted, including senior Obama adviser Peter Rouse and climate change czar Carol Browner, to intervene for the company in restructuring its Energy Department loan. He also stressed that even “as a last resort” the idea might backfire and irritate Chu.

“Understood.” Mitchell wrote on Oct. 6, 2010. “The WH has offered to help in the past and we do have a contact with the WH that we are working with.“

Solyndra officials had privately confided to Department of Energy officials in late October 2010 that they would have to liquidate the company by December, if they did not receive emergency cash or some agency restructuring of their loan.

Kaiser gave suggested phrasing for how to seek other kinds of White House help for the company, however.

Kaiser recommended an indirect approach, in seeking what appeared to be a potential Department of Defense contract. Kaiser stressed mentioning a passing reference to the contract as “something that came up...rather than [saying] can you help with this?”

“Why don’t you pursue your contacts in the WH to follow up on the casual comment during the [Solyndra] plant visit and we can possibly reinforce the effort,” Kaiser suggested.

“Keep us up to speed,” Kaiser wrote before signing off.

The “visit” appears to be a reference to President Obama’s visit to Solyndra’s Fremont plan in May 2010.

Mitchell had numerous visits at the White House. One of Kaiser’s close associates, former Alaska governor Anthony Knowles, also was good friends with and met frequently with Rouse, logs show. Knowles worked as the director of an energy policy think tank that Kaiser had founded. Knowles has said he only discussed energy policy, not Solyndra, in his White House meetings.

The e-mails also signal how optimistic the company was about winning a second loan – based on conversations with a top Department of Energy official – and how strong an advocate they believe they had in Secretary Chu.

In a March 2010 e-mail, Kaiser wrote about the senior White House officials in charge of economic stimulus he had recently met with in Washington and the great response they had to Solyndra.

“Every one responded simultaneously about their thorough knowledge of the Solyndra, situation, suggesting it was one of their prime poster children,” he wrote.

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