Defending what is obviously indefensible.

(NPR) — In an interview with NPR, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu vigorously defended the actions of the Department of Energy with regards $528 million in loans it gave the now-bankrupt solar energy company Solyndra.

Chu told All Things Considered’s Melissa Block that neither he nor any of his staff working on DOE loans program was swayed by politics and that even in hindsight there was no way to know that Solyndra would fail.

President Obama’s administration has been engulfed by the Solyndra scandal for weeks. At issue is whether the White House pressured the Department of Energy to guarantee loans for Solyndra because the company had connections with at least one big Obama donor. Another question is whether the White House and the DOE ignored red flags about the company.

Chu denied all those claims and said his department did their due diligence on Solyndra.

“We improved the [loan] process,” said Chu. “We did no cut corners. We made it more thorough and diligent. . . We were very thorough in the application of the loan.”

Chu said the loan application was processed by professionals and the department asked “outside people” to look at market conditions; they asked for “second and third opinions about what the landscape was.” Chu added that one thing that none of their analysts anticipated was that the price of solar modules would “plummet.”

Melissa pressed Chu. She asked him how could the DOE continue issuing payments to the company even after the firm Price Waterhouse Coopers audited it and found serious issues with its finances.

Chu said that a startup that’s trying to build a new factory “would be burning through money” and have cash-flow issues.