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Obama Rewards Party Donors with White House Perks
Remember the Clinton scandal from the 1990s when the Bill and Hillary shamelessly rented out the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House to top Democratic donors? Well, not to be outdone, it appears President Obama is now offering up the entire White House complex for sale.
This according to The Washington Times:
During his first nine months in office, President Obama has quietly rewarded scores of top Democratic donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings.
High-dollar fundraisers have been promised access to senior White House officials in exchange for pledges to donate $30,400 personally or to bundle $300,000 in contributions ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, according to internal Democratic National Committee documents obtained by The Washington Times.
One top donor described in an interview with The Times being given a birthday visit to the Oval Office. Another was allowed use of a White House-complex bowling alley for his family. Bundlers closest to the president were invited to watch a movie in the red-walled theater in the basement of the presidential mansion.
Now The White House, as expected, is downplaying the scandal. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in an email to reporters that “it’s no surprise” that some who have contributed to Democratic campaigns have visited The White House. But in his meandering justification, Pfeiffer managed to ignore the central charge against the Obama White House — that party donors given White House access and other perks in exchange for cash donations. Which, of course, could be in violation of a number of federal laws.
Pfeiffer also took his Clintonian defense of the Obama administration one giant step further, claiming that the administration has not only conducted itself with integrity in this situation, but that, overall, it has put into place the “toughest ethics standards in history.” Other than “ethics waivers,” enemies lists, government threats and attacks on businesses, media and talk radio hosts, and politicizing the NEA (see below), etc.?
And what about those White House visitor logs?
Pfeiffer boasted in his email defense that “for the first time in history, records detailing who visited the White House will be made public on a regular basis.”
But this doesn’t come close to telling the full story. The White House did promise that it will release some White House visitor logs in the future but it has not released visitor logs from the first nine months of the administration…which just happens to be the period of time these alleged donor visits took place. We, of course, are fighting to have all of the visitor logs released.
As we said in a press statement about this latest scandal, “Attorney General Holder can demonstrate his independence by appointing a special counsel to conduct an independent investigation of these serious allegations. In the meantime, the Obama White House needs to respond to our and others’ requests for information about White House visitors.”
Too many in the liberal media have fallen for their hero Obama’s line that this is a non-scandal. It will be up to honest news outlets and independent watchdogs like Judicial Watch to try to get to the full truth of this latest Obama scandal.
Respectfully submitted,
Penny Crosson
