Obama Super PAC Donors Among White House Guests
WASHINGTON — More than half of President Barack Obama's most generous campaign fundraisers have visited the White House at least once for meetings with top advisers, holiday parties or state dinners, according to a review by The Associated Press. Scores made multiple visits.
The invitations for fundraisers to visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – a legal and established practice by incumbent presidents – came despite Obama's past criticisms of Washington's pay-for-access privileges and mark a reversal from early in the president's term when donors complained that Obama was keeping them at arm's length.
The AP's review compared more than 470 of Obama's most important financial supporters against logs of 2 million visitors to the White House since mid-2009. It found that at least 250 of Obama's major fundraisers, as well as a handful of donors to a "super" political committee supporting his campaign were cleared to attend social gatherings or one-on-one meetings with senior advisers.
As a presidential candidate running against Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's campaign once sharply noted that Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had invited David Geffen – whom Obama's campaign said had raised $18 million for the Clintons – to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom. The AP found no evidence of Obama's own donors sleeping overnight in the White House, but timestamps showing arrivals and departures on the government's logs are incomplete for more than 1.7 million records.
This month, the White House extended invitations to more than 30 of the president's top fundraisers to an elaborate state dinner, where they mingled with celebrities and dined with foreign leaders on the South Lawn of the White House.
Other purposes for visits included one-on-one meetings with top West Wing staffers, such as former chief of staff Pete Rouse and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Those donors include so-called "bundlers" – supporters who have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece for Obama's re-election.
Across the Atlantic on Monday, British Prime Minister David Cameron released records of private meetings with his own donors who dined with him at 10 Downing St. Cameron's government initially refused to share details of the meetings. It changed course following the resignation Sunday of a fundraising aide caught boasting that he could organize access to Cameron in return for large donations. Cameron said the dinners were not intended to solicit funds for his party and were private meals with people he regarded as friends.
Obama's campaign has said it would begin encouraging supporters to donate to a "super" political action committee supporting him, Priorities USA Action, to counterbalance the cash flowing to GOP groups. The decision drew rebukes from campaign-finance watchdogs and Republicans who said Obama flip-flopped on his prior stance assailing super PAC money. The group supporting Obama has raised $6.3 million so far.
Visitor-log details of some of Obama's donors have surfaced in news reports since he took office. But the financial weight of super PACs and their influence on this year's election have prompted renewed scrutiny of the big-money financiers behind presidential candidates – and what those supporters might want in return.
Many of the White House visits by donors came before the president embraced the big-money, fundraising groups he once assailed as a "threat to democracy" on grounds they corrode elections by permitting unlimited and effectively anonymous donations from billionaires and corporations. Obama was once so vocal about super PACs that, during his 2010 State of the Union speech, he accused the Supreme Court in its 2010 decision in the Citizens United case of reversing a century of law that would "open the floodgates for special interests." But the success of Republicans raising money changed the stakes.
Top donors to the super PAC supporting Obama, like Chicago investment manager John W. Rogers Jr. and Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, gave more than $150,000 combined to Priorities USA Action, according to finance reports, while also making repeated trips to the White House.
Rogers is a longtime Obama friend who contributed $50,000 in January – nearly all the money the super PAC collected the entire month. Rogers was selected by the administration in October 2010 to head a financial advisory council, and visited the White House more than two dozen times since Obama took office, including one-on-one meetings with former chief of staff William Daley and Jarrett, Obama's senior adviser.
Two weeks before Rogers' contribution in January, Obama's campaign paid his firm, Ariel Investments, $600 for "event site rental," according to finance reports. An Obama campaign spokeswoman said the event was for a campaign retreat; a spokeswoman for Rogers did not respond to repeated phone calls and emails from the AP seeking comment.
Other donors who visited the White House, either before they gave money to support Obama or afterward, include:
_Lenny Mendonca, a director of consulting firm McKinsey & Co., gave $50,000 to Priorities USA Action in November 2011, according to records submitted to the Federal Election Commission. Visitor logs showed Mendonca met in June 2011 with Carl Shapiro, one of Obama's top economic advisers, and three months earlier with Melody Barnes, then the president's chief domestic policy advisor.
_Orin Kramer, a key Obama fundraiser who gave $15,000 to Priorities USA in October, attended White House events with Obama at least five times, according to visitor logs, plus his invitation to a state dinner March 14 honoring Britain's Cameron. His other visits included a smaller gathering in March 2011 that was described as a presidential meeting but records offered few details.
_Spielberg, another Obama supporter, donated $100,000 last July to Priorities USA – one of the group's largest individual contributions. One month later, Spielberg attended a Rose Garden event with the president. He also has visited the White House at least three other times, including in March 2010 to screen a movie for the president and first lady Michelle Obama.
Through a spokeswoman, Mendonca declined to comment. Kramer told the AP the information obtained from the Obama administration was "completely inaccurate," but did not deny he has visited the White House. "I help candidates because I think election outcomes matter," Kramer said in an email.
The AP's review excluded visits like White House tours available to the general public.
A White House spokesman did not fully respond to repeated requests from the AP for details of visits by Obama's campaign donors, saying it was impractical to do so. A campaign spokesman did not respond to requests seeking comment Monday.
The revelations of Obama's donor-visitors brought renewed criticism Monday from the Republican National Committee: "President Obama promised he would be different – that he wouldn't give special access to his campaign supporters and donors," RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski told the AP. "But now it's clear it's politics as usual in the Obama White House."
Obama so far has raised more than $120 million for his re-election effort – not counting millions more from the Democratic Party – an outsized figure compared with potential GOP rivals like Romney, who collected $74 million in checks through the end of February. That calculus may change as wealthy billionaires who have supported their favorite candidates this primary season may rally around the eventual Republican nominee.
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JACK GILLUM 03/26/12 03:46 PM ET Associated Press