SEIU’s Stern Tops White House Visitor List

• Article

• CONNECT

Susan Davis reports on the White House.
Promising “transparency like you’ve never seen before,” The White House released its visitor log this evening under a new voluntary disclosure policy.
The log chronicles 481 visits to the White House from individuals ranging from Jay-Z to Bill Gates from January through July.
The list includes William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Moore, Robert Kelly (R. Kelly), Malik Shabazz, and Michael Jordan.
But the White House said those aren’t the guys you’re thinking of. Nor is the log complete.
“A lot of people visit the White House, up to 100,000 each month, with many of those folks coming to tour the buildings. Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few ‘false positives’ – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else,” Norm Eisen, a special counsel to the president, writes on the White House blog. “The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.”
Adds Eisen: “This unprecedented level of transparency can sometimes be confusing rather than providing clear information.”
One thing is clear: Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern holds sway at the White House, where he’s listed for 22 visits—the top number on the logs. Visitors in the top 10 also include former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy, and NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan.