Like Captain Renault in Casablanca, I am shocked, shocked to discover that
access-peddling is going on in the Obama White House. Perks for deep-pocketed
donors? Presidential meetings for sale? The stale, Chicago odor of
pay-for-play wafting from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Knock me over with a
feather.
Despite the president’s claimed distaste for the campaign finance practice
known as “bundling” (rounding up aggregate contributions from friends,
business associates, and employees), the House of Obama has been a campaign
finance bundlers’ paradise from Day One. A new report by Matthew Mosk of the
Washington Times just confirms the gob-smackingly obvious: It’s business as
usual in the era of Hope and Change. O’s wealthiest Democrat donors have
received lavish receptions, golf outings, bowling dates, and movie nights with
Obama.
And internal Democratic National Committee documents acquired by the Times
reveal that “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.” Yup,
they’re just haggling over the price.
Many Obama bundlers have secured slots on federal advisory panels and
commissions. Still more have benefited from the time-honored patronage
tradition of rewarding political benefactors with ambassadorships. Clinton did
it. Bush did it. And despite all his fantastical, Balloon Boy-level rhetoric
of bringing a “new politics” to Washington, Obama’s done it, too.
His ambassador to London, Louis Susman, is a Chicago crony with no
diplomatic experience who bundled between $200,000 and $500,000 for Team Obama
and is known as “The Vacuum Cleaner” for his fundraising prowess. His
ambassador to France, entertainment mogul
Charlie Rivkin headed up Obama’s California fundraising operations, raking
in $500,000 for the campaign and another $300,000 for the inaugural. His
ambassador to Spain, Boston money man
Alan Solomont, also bundled the same amounts for the campaign and
inaugural.
In June 2008, candidate Obama
railed: “We need a President who will look out for the interests of
hardworking families, not just their big campaign donors and corporate
allies.” Immediately after the speech, he headed to a campaign fundraiser at
the Manhattan headquarters of Credit Suisse, one of the major investment
companies caught up in the subprime lending debacle. President Obama collected
another $3 million last week at another Manhattan fundraiser after carping
about Wall Street’s “self-interestedness.” Audacity is his middle name.
When Obama inveighs against Wall Street greed and politicians beholden to
Big Business, remember this: The Wall Street gamblers that Obama and his wife
carped about on the campaign trail shoveled money to his campaign hand over
fist. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, hedge funds and private
equity firms donated
$2,992,456 to the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle. No fewer than 100
Obama bundlers are investment CEOs and brokers: nearly two dozen work for
financial giants such as Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, or Citigroup.
Obama happily accepted more than $200,000 in bundled contributions from
billionaire hedge-fund manager James Torrey, more than $100,000 in bundled
contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones and more
than $50,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager
Kenneth C. Griffin, chief executive officer of Citadel Investment Group in
Chicago. Another notable: Chicago investment banker James Reynolds, who raised
more than $200,000 for the Obama campaign while chief executive of Loop
Capital Markets. The municipal bond specialist was a longtime friend of
Obama—feting the rising star in his Hyde Park home and convincing friends and
associates to open up their wallets more than a decade ago.
In 2003, USA Today reported, Reynolds was caught on FBI wiretaps arranging
what prosecutors called a “sham” consulting contract with a gal pal of a
Philadelphia mayoral adviser. After the conversations, Reynolds snagged
$300,000 in no-bid city contracts for Loop Capital Markets. City officials
went to jail over the scam. Reynolds skated. The Obama campaign’s only
statement? “Jim Reynolds has admitted that he made mistakes, but he has not
been charged with any wrongdoing.”
Fortunately for Obama bundlers who may find themselves in legal trouble in
the future, Clinton-era donor maintenance fixer Eric Holder (who oversaw the
pardon for fugitive financier March Rich) is guarding the henhouse at the
Justice Department.
Every corner of the Obama administration is stuffed with crony moneybags.
Take the First Lady’s social secretary, Desiree Rogers. More than a party
planner, she’s a fund-raising machine in her own right. According to left-wing
watchdog Public Citizen, Rogers bundled more than $200,000 for Obama and
contributed $28,500 to Democrat committees. Rogers’ ex-husband, John W.
Rogers, Jr., chief executive of multi-billion-dollar Ariel Capital Management,
played basketball with Michelle O’s brother, Craig Robinson, at Princeton. Mr.
Rogers also served as a campaign finance bundler for Team Obama – and hung
with President Obama in the White House on Super Bowl Sunday.
An indignant White House says this is about “friendship,” not
influence-peddling. But as Obama himself noted in 2007: “It is no coincidence
that the best bundlers are often granted the greatest access, and access is
power in Washington.”
Indeed, the Obama White House policy can be summed up in four words. No
Bundler Left Behind.