GSA, GOP scrap over ex-leader’s whereabouts during LV conference

The whereabouts of then-GSA leader Martha Johnson is emerging as a side issue to the agency's 2010 Western Regions Conference that has been blasted for excess and is drawing scrutiny from multiple congressional panels.

Disputing an earlier news report, the General Services Administration provided information Wednesday that Johnson was not in California for meetings about Solyndra during the week that 300 of her charges were attending an extravagant training conference in Las Vegas.

But hours later House Republicans released documents indicating that Johnson had planned to visit the solar firm's plant in Fremont that week but the trip was scrapped at the last minute.

Johnson served as administrator of the federal procurement and property management agency from February 2010 until April 2. She abruptly resigned upon release of an inspector general's report that detailed massive wasteful spending and contracting shortcuts taken by GSA planners of the $823,000 Las Vegas conference.

Republicans were salivating over a news report earlier this week that suggested Johnson skipped the Vegas meeting because she was on business to help save the flagging solar manufacturing plant that the GOP has tried to make a poster child for charges of Obama administration failure.

Couple that with news of wasteful spending at the M Resort, it would have been too good to be true for critics of the White House.

It appears it was — to a point.

GSA officials provided evidence that Johnson was not in California the week of October 25-29.

Instead she was in Williamsburg, Va., on that Monday and Tuesday, during the first two days of the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council Executive Leadership Conference.

On Wednesday, Johnson spoke in Washington at the Global Environmental Management Initiative Conference, then flew later that day to Portland, Ore, according to GSA spokesman Adam Elkington.

In Portland that Thursday, she spoke to a women's group about job training, and visited the Edith Green/Wendell Wyatt Federal Building.

Johnson returned to Washington on that Friday, Elkington said.

Hours later, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that has investigated Solyndra extensively, released emails and other documents indicating plans were being made for a Johnson visit that Thursday, Oct. 28.

An Oct. 25, 2010 email from a GSA press official to deputy administrator Susan Brita said:

“I’m coordinating with the Solyndra folks today to tie down the details. I’ll let you know if anything changes, but as of now the event is the morning of Thursday, the 28th. I’m shooting for 10:30ish. MJ will take a tour of the plant and speak to plant execs and workers. No formal remarks. I’m inviting a few targeted reporters who seem like good fits for this sort of thing.”

That same day, Solyndra chief executive Brian Harrison notified the White House of impending layoffs that were to be announced on the same day the GSA was planning to send Johnson. The announcement was delayed but Johnson did not make the trip.

The meeting at Solyndra "never happened," a GSA spokesman confirmed Wednesday night.