WH staffers meet with lobbyists at coffee shop: Not subject to disclosure on WH visitors’ log

[Freddie Stubbs]

Across From White House, Coffee With Lobbyists

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON — There are no Secret Service agents posted next to the barista and no presidential seal on the ceiling, but the Caribou Coffee across the street from the White House has become a favorite meeting spot to conduct Obama administration business.

Here at the Caribou on Pennsylvania Avenue, and a few other nearby coffee shops, White House officials have met hundreds of times over the last 18 months with prominent K Street lobbyists — members of the same industry that President Obama has derided for what he calls its “outsized influence” in the capital.

On the agenda over espressos and lattes, according to more than a dozen lobbyists and political operatives who have taken part in the sessions, have been front-burner issues like Wall Street regulation, health care rules, federal stimulus money, energy policy and climate control — and their impact on the lobbyists’ corporate clients.

But because the discussions are not taking place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they are not subject to disclosure on the visitors’ log that the White House releases as part of its pledge to be the “most transparent presidential administration in history.”

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/us/politics/25caribou.html?pagewanted=print

[SunsetDreams]

1. Why would I believe a lobbyist?

[Empowerer]

57. Why wouldn't you?

Why do you assume all lobbyists are liars?

I will bet that some of the causes that you believe most strongly in are represented by lobbyists.

[SunsetDreams]

58. Why should I believe

someone with an agenda? In fact, there are no names named here, I am not even sure I believe the article at all.
Why is there not a picture of said meeting? They took the time to take a picture of a staffer with the manager of the coffee shop.
Yeah this article represents real solid proof. To me it is nothing but another hit piece.

Anyone can write an article and say some anonymous person said this, some WH staffer, some lobbyist, some whoever said that. Hell for that matter, they can quote someone directly, and name them, it doesn't mean I will believe it.
Sadly way too many people buy into that, I am not one of them.

[Empowerer]

60. I agree with you that the article is a crock

I was just questioning what seemed to me to be an assumption that lobbyists are all liars. Maybe I misunderstood your point.

[SunsetDreams]

62. You did, but

hey there is no harm, it gave me an opportunity to clarify my position, so thank you.

[Empowerer]

63. Thanks :-)

[SunsetDreams]

65. You're welcome :)

[geek tragedy]

2. Not surprising. Visitor logs have limited value. nt

[arcadian]

3. That there is some transparency

Most people would call that cheating.

[polichick]

4. No kidding - if true, that's hardly in keeping with the spirit of transparency.

[county worker]

10. Transparency means visibility no? You more than likely could go there and take a picture if the

story were true. You could take a picture post it on Facebook or where ever and say, "look the White House staff is drinking coffee with lobbyists and secretaries and janitors! Shocking!"

[arcadian]

11. That is a lame defense.

[county worker]

13. It's no defense it's reality. Why do you take such bull shit stories as serious?

Have you ever been in Washington DC? Any one can go get a coffee there and see who ever is there! If someone wanted to keep a meeting a secret, they most certainly would not go to a public place!

[Tarheel_Dem]

14. It suits his agenda. I wouldn't take him too seriously, though. (nt)

[arcadian]

16. Here is the thing about that

Not everybody can go to DC and sniff out which coffee shops happen to be being used by Whitehouse staffers that day. However Whitehouse visitor logs are open for FOIA requests by anybody. That's how your argument is LAME.

[SunsetDreams]

18. If they can take a picture of a WH staffer with the manager of the coffee shop

Why can't they take a picture of a WH staffer with these supposed lobbyist?

Where is that picture?

[TheWraith]

19. Right...

... because it's not like Washington D.C. has any watchdog groups there. And certainly there would never be any reporters to be found at the nearest coffee shop to the White House. :sarcasm:

[arcadian]

21. You really didn't address anything that I actually said.

:eyes:

[TheWraith]

45. Yeah, I did.

You just don't like the fact that serious transparency and accountability investigations are going to be conducted by people who are there on the ground, and not by people operating out of Boise, Idaho filing FOIA requests. I'm sorry, but life is sometimes inconvenient. If you want to be about investigating Washington, maybe you should actually be in Washington.

[Empowerer]

23. White House visitor logs tell you only who came in and who invted them

They tell you nothing about who met with whom once the visitor came in.

If yu want information about who is lobbying whom, how much they spend on lobbying, what issues their lobbying, etc., that information is readily available in the quarterly Lobbying Disclosure reports available online without a FOIA request.

White House visitor logs are not designed for nor intended to provide transparency in lobbying.

[county worker]

25. The White House is surrounded by news people, You can't go out the door without the news knowing it

You lack a defense.

There is a tunnel that FDR used to go the the train station though.

[arcadian]

27. Really?

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

[county worker]

29. Did they not get caught?

When someone has nothing to say they resort to that kind of shit.

[arcadian]

30. They got caught a day later after they outed themselves

Face it, I tore your argument to shreds.

[Empowerer]

31. That's not true

This may be the case with who goes in and out of the West Wing, where reporters are camped out watching the comings and goings. But the West Wing is but one small part of the White House.

The White House is a large complex - including the East Wing, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the New Executive Office Building, and several other buildings in a multi-block radius housing hundreds and hundreds of staff people. Hundreds of visitors come in and out every day, most of whom the press doesn't see or seem to be interested in seeing. That's why the visitors logs aren't a very good record of lobbying activity, since one has to comb through tens of thousands of records to cull a relative handful of lobbying visits.

And that "tunnel?" A myth. Doesn't exist.

[polichick]

5. Not exactly "change we can believe in." nt

[grantcart]

22. My lord how brilliantly originial.

[polichick]

32. Hey, I'm not the one who ran on that slogan. ;)

[vaberella]

42. I didn't realize that eating at a nearby Coffee Shop had to be put on a list. n/t

[xchrom]

6. Some where over the rainbow-

Is an administration with the nerve
not to meet with K street at all.

[polichick]

9. Really - I don't see why they do it at all. Maybe one day we'll have a prez...

...who is serious about representing the people and doesn't care if he or she has campaign funds to run for a second term.

[TheWraith]

15. Yes, we should only talk to people who agree with us already.

Where have I heard that one before?

[arcadian]

24. I think it's DU's new motto

Or at least a segment of DU, isn't it?

[treestar]

7. Isn't a coffee shop a public place?

One might even overhear the conversation.

[county worker]

12. Quit, you take away all the fun by being rational!

[Nite Owl]

8. Loophole!!!

figures they would find it.

[Empowerer]

17. This is a meaningless piece of "gotcha" journalism

The White House visitor logs play no role in lobbying disclosure. They only document who came into the White House and who invited them. They actually offer very little information about lobbying contacts, so this article's suggestion that if someone doesn't show up in the WH visitor log, they are somehow sneaking in under the radar is spurious.

The WH visitor logs have nothing to do with lobbying disclosures. In fact, lobbyists are legally required to report all lobbying contacts with Administration and Congressional officials on a quarterly basis in disclosure under the Lobbing Disclosure Act. They must report these wherever they happen to occur - even if they take place in a coffee shop. Failure to do so is a crime. Moreover, failure to do so will likely substantially cut down on a paid lobbyist's fees since their clients are paying for their lobbing services. Since their clients certainly aren't going to pay for lobbying that can't be documented, it's not in a lobbyist's interest to under-report their contacts.

There can be all sorts of reasons that some of these meetings take place "off-campus." One reason is that it's a pain in the neck to clear people into the White House and can take a long time to get in, depending on what's going on that day. It's much easier for a staffer to just meet someone outside the perimeter. Sometimes, WH staffers just want to get out of the building, as crazy as that may sound.

Unfortunately, lobbying has gotten a terrible name, even when it doesn't deserve it. While some aspects of lobbying are very problematic and need to be reformed, all lobbying is not bad. When you write a letter to your Member of Congress, you're lobbying. When someone at a rally tells the President to fight for health care reform, that's lobbying. When the NOW urges the President to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court, that's lobbying. When Marian Wright Edelman and the Children's Defense Fund fight for the CHIP program, that's lobbying.

In my view, lobbying is not in and of itself is not the problem - lobbying is, in fact, a good thing. The problem is the undue influence of money in the lobbying system.

But this article does nothing to address the problem. It is obviously designed to cast unfair aspersions and create a controvery where none is warranted.

[Gordan Shumway]

26. Good post

[brentspeak]

69. When Goldman Sachs swindlers and insurance co execs have lunch with Rahm, that's lobbying

It's a safe bet that the White House is not scheduling secret meetings at Starbucks to discuss strategy with representatives from the Children's Defense Fund.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

73. Holy shit - someone besides me has it right!

I never, ever thought I'd see the day!

[Tarheel_Dem]

20. Do we know what they discussed? Have lobbyists been banned from DC?

I hope my employer doesn't keep tabs on who I have coffee with. But maybe in the spirit of "transparency", I should disclose that information?

What I find most disturbing about these hit pieces is they always come with unnamed "White House Staffers"; "Senior Administration Officials"; or "On condition of anonymity". I mean, how hard is it to snap a picture? Let us see who's actually breaking the administration's pledge. Is that asking too much?

[Empowerer]

56. What's not mentioned: Most lobbying takes place with Congress and Admininstration (not WH) officials

Most lobbying is done with Members of Congress and their staffs and Department officials, not the White House. And, for the most part, visits to the Capitol, Congressional office buildings or to Department office buildings are NOT recorded in any visitor logs.

Moreover, WH visitor logs don't capture phone calls - and a phone call from a lobbyist to a White House staff person has the same import as a face-to-face conversation over a cup of coffee.

So the obsession with the White House visitor logs as some kind of a exclusive and conclusive record of lobbying activity is way off base.

The bottom line is that lobbyists are required by law to disclose all of their lobbying contacts in quarterly filings. THAT is where the transparency is. The White House visitor logs, while providing some information (but usually that information is so needle-in-a-haystack as to be not worth the effort unless you're trying to track the visits of a particular person), are virtually useless as a lobbying tracking tool.

If a lobbyist communicates with a White House staffer on an issue covered by the lobbying rules, it doesn't matter whether the comunication takes place in the White House or on the telephone or in a coffee shop or in their home or on the street or by letter or email or tweet or on the Metro or on an airplane or at their children's playground).

[BklnDem75]

28. Secret meetings in public...

Not the almond croissant I can believe in...

[vaberella]

43. You know how it goes. n/t

[DevonRex]

33. Is that the superduper secret private, uh, public, uh, private coffee shop

that nobody knows where it is so nobody knows that a meeting happened? Oh, wait...

[jefferson_dem]

34. Yeah! Plus ... I read on a blog somewhere that one of the White House staffers...

... (wait for it)


...even ordered a non-fat latte with two equal! :wow:

[SunsetDreams]

35. OMG are you serious?!?!!!!?

They must not be true liburalz iffin' they gonna doos that!

[DevonRex]

36. Those dern latte libruls!

:mad:

[jefferson_dem]

37. He also ordered a buttered "croissant", with a totally French-like enunciation.

:grr:

[DevonRex]

38. OMG. Not a cwoissant, too! The horror of it all. A cwoissant in a public-private

superduper secret meeting that EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT!@!!!ELEVENS1111 How will we ever SURVIVE????

And, psssttt...

Just who bought those iced skim milk lattes with gold dust sprinkles I ask????

[amandabeech]

40. Caribou doesn't have croissants.

The reduced fat mixed berry muffins, however, are delish.

The coffee is pretty good, too. I like it much better than Starbucks.

If you want a croissant, you go to Au Bon Pain. I recommend the "morning blend" coffee.

[spoony]

39. What liberals? nt

[HughMoran]

71. there is no spoon

[HughMoran]

70. SERIES!!!111!!one!1!?

:wow:

[vaberella]

41. Does the White House have a Coffee Shop inside it?! If not, why would it be on the logs?!

I'm confused by this article.

[Enrique]

48. they're getting around the visitor logs by meeting at the coffee shop

that's the idea.

[Empowerer]

53. And if they WERE going in and out of the White House, people would be saying

"Obama staff allowing lobbyists free run of the White House."

As noted elsewhere, it's highly unlikely that these folks are meeting in public places across the street from the White House because they're trying to avoid detection. And the White House visitor logs are hardly an easy way to to keep track of lobbyist activities - much less the end-all-and-be-all of transparency in government.

[volvoblue]

44. I will bet they are low to mid level staff and not high on the food chain

hoping for jobs, ect.
I am seeing lots of smoke and no fire here

[KoKo]

68. Chuckie Todd isn't Coffeeing it up with WH Insiders? Ya Think?

Seems quite cozy to me in his reporting. And the rest of his group who work for Politico and various other "formerly Dem Blogs that have turned Centerest..i.e. the "formerly known as Lefty Bloggers"....might be in on that stuff, too.

Can't blame them. They are young and have their careers ahead of them. It's either cozy up to the Lobbyists or end up on Mom & Dad's Couch in the McMansion and have to tell your Ivy League buddies who have jobs on Wall St. raking it in with the Bail Outs...that you are working in Gubbmint...and that doesn't give you creds with those folks that you attended the Frat Parties with.... who see you as a looser.

[Jim Sagle]

46. Change you can buy a cuppa coffee with - if you're over 65 and go to Burger King.

[Catherina]

52. There's no change. There's no transparency. And there's no hope

unless you count *praying* for the catastrophe in the Gulf to miraculously fix itself. If we want change, we have to demand it.

[EffieBlack]

47. I don't get it

What's the story here?

[Enrique]

49. the visitor logs give us an idea about lobbyists' influence

by meeting at the coffee shop, they're bypassing the visitor logs so we know less about the influence. That's the story.

[Bodhi BloodWave]

50. aside from that its in public and all, and seriously, are you saying that they can't meet

anybody outside of the white house that might be or is a lobbying because its bypassing the visitor logs?

[Empowerer]

54. That's flat out untrue

The visitor logs don't tell us squat about a lobbyist's influence. They just tell us who is going into the White House. While to someone outside of Washington, that may seem like a big deal, folks inside this space know that people go in and out of the White House all of the time and it often has little to do with influence. The White House hosts dozens of meetings a day. Many of the attendees are registered lobbyists, most are not. The logs tell us only who went in and who invited them. They don't tell us what people did or who they talked to or what they discussed once they got inside.

For example, if someone is invited to the White House to attend a meeting or briefing or event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, they provide their vital information in advance and are cleared in at the gate, which puts them in the visitor logs. But once inside, after they attend their event or meeting, they can very easily stop by to visit other friends or acquaintances in the building. They can chat with whomever they run into in the hallway. They can stop downstairs in the cafeteria to get something to eat and talk to staff who come in for a sandwich. So if they are invited by, say, the Office of Management and Budget to attend a briefing on the President's budget priorities, the visitor log reflects that. But if they decide to later stop in to see, say, the President's Assistant for Legislative Affairs to lobby a particular piece of legislation, the visitor logs will not reflect that. The lobbyist is required by law, however, to disclose that lobbying contact in their quarterly lobbying report.

The White House visitor logs are intended to maintain a record of everyone who goes in and out of the White House. They are not a lobbying disclosure nor do are they intended to capture and report every contact, conversation or interaction every White House staffer may have with any lobbyist. This obsession with the visitors logs and whether one is "skirting" them by talking to a White House staffer outside of the White House - especially when those contacts are clearly not being conducted in secret - is crazy and meaningless.

[NYC Liberal]

59. They are meeting in public, in full view of anyone

and everyone around. Do you think if the intent was "bypassing the visitor logs so we know less about the influence" that they would be meeting in a public coffee shop?

Come on.

[Empowerer]

61. Why not just call them up on the phone?

Or meet them somewhere other than a public coffeeshop across the street from the White House.

You're right - this is a pretty bizarre piece of "investigative" journalism.

[NYC Liberal]

64. Yep, just like when Karl Rove outed Valerie Plame,

he met with reporters in a public coffee shop to do it! That sneaky bastard. :rofl:

[Empowerer]

66. :-)

[SidDithers]

55. There is no story...

Continuous outrage, however, sells papers and website advertising.

Sid

[HughMoran]

72. Story? It's about continuously attempting to discredit the Obama administration

Doesn't everybody know this?

[Name removed]

51. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KoKo]

67. Birds Eye View of Influence in DC...Kinda Cool! Bush/Cheney might have already done this....

but we are taking it to a new height.

Not what we thought we were going to have...but it's the way things work and too hard to change it now.

[Radical Activist]

74. I love Caribou Coffee!

I've had many meetings there.

But I don't love this story. Not cool.

[PBS Poll-435]

75. They've Scone and Done It Again...