Petrelis Files

White House: 11 Visits by HRC's Solmonese

Back in October, when the White House released the first batch of visitor logs that had been requested by many through FOIA, I looked for info on visits by Joe Solmonese, head of the Human Rights Campaign. None showed up, and I said to expect his name to appear in future logs.

To ensure the White House released any logs on Solmonese, I filed a FOIA request for them. Today, this notice came my way:

Thank you for submitting a look back request for White House visitor records. Today, the White House posted nearly 55,000 visitor records which include any records that were responsive to your request. You can see the blog post and review the records here.

Regards,
Norm Eisen
Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform

Nice to get such a response and to find that Solmonese has been to the White House 11 times, and on one day he went twice.

I don't know that I would characterize any of his visits in the presence of the President as opportunities were Solmonese was able to speak directly with Obama. On the other hand, his meeting with Jim Messina, deputy chief of staff, on November 11 as the meeting where Solmonese got the closest to the President's ear.

Many of the events he attended were packed with dozens to hundreds of people, while only 3 meetings involved only 2-3 people. Those three meetings pique my curiosity the most, and I believeSolmonese had a duty to give the gay community some transparency on what took place at them.

If America's top gay political leader is at the White House for a one-on-one meeting with the deputy chief of staff, I want a report back to the community about it.

That being said, I love seeing so much sunshine emanating from the White House. Between FOIA requests filed by citizens and the media for visitor logs, and the Obama administration's commitment to regularly release the logs on the web for public inspection, open government proudly marches on.

Here's the key info on Solmonese's White House visits:

Glossary of abbreviations: POTUS = President of the US, WH = White House, WW = West Wing, SCOTUS = Supreme Court of the US.

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOE
Visitee: POTUS
Location: WH
Room: STATE FLOO
Description: LGBT RECEPTION ON THE STATE FLOOR
Total # of people: 331
Date: 2009-06-29

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEH R
Visitee: POTUS
Location: WH
Room: EAST ROOM
Description: [blank]
Total # of people: 106
Date: 2009-03-05

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEPH R
Visitee: POTUS
Location: WH
Room: BLUE ROOM
Description: OPL COCKTAIL PARTY
Total # of people: 31
Date: 2009-02-18

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEPH R
Visitee: POTUS
Location: WH
Room: EAST ROOM
Description: MEETING
Total # of people: 59
Date: 2009-02-23

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEPH R
Visitee: KENNEDY JOSEPH
Location: OEOB
Room: 450
Description: THIS IS AN EVENT AROUND THE NEW HIV/AIDS PROGRAM.
Total # of people: 131
Date: 2009-04-07

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEPH R
Visitee: TCHEN TINA
Location: WH
Room: WW
Description: [blank]
Total # of people: 3
Date: 2009-05-04

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEPH R
Visitee: POTUS
Location: WH
Room: EAST ROOM
Description: EVENT AROUND SCOTUS
Total # of people: 136
Date: 2009-05-26

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEPH R
Visitee: BOND BRIAN
Location: OEOB
Room: 105
Description: [blank]
Total # of people: 2
Date: 2009-11-05

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEPH R
Visitee: MESSINA JIM
Location: WH
Room: WW
Description: [blank]
Total # of people: 2
Date: 2009-11-11

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEPH R
Visitee: POTUS
Location: WH
Room: EAST ROOM
Description: [blank]
Total # of people: 132
Date: 2009-10-28

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEPH R
Visitee: POTUS
Location: WH
Room: EAST ROOM
Description: HATE CRIMES EVENT WITH POTUS
Total # of people: 190
Date: 2009-10-28