Petrelis Files

HRC's Veterans Day Meeting
at White House with Messina

The Advocate's Washington-based reporter Kerry Eleveld posted a story late Wednesday about the White House and professional gay advocate strategizing over plans to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell:

Yet just days after the January 27 [State of the Union] speech, White House officials convened a meeting on February 1 with LGBT advocates in which they said the policy would not be included in the president’s recommendations for this year's Department of Defense authorization bill, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the meeting.

“It was a definitive shut-down from [Jim] Messina,” said a source, who was present at the meeting and agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, referring to the White House deputy chief of staff. “He said it would not be going into the president’s Defense authorization budget proposal.” [...]

Eleveld today posted a follow up piece, in which a gay lobbyist who was at the February 1 White House, Robert Raben, gave his interpretation of what transpired.

My curiosity was piqued about that February 1 meeting, which included David M. Smith, top political strategist for the Human Rights Campaign, so I checked out the White House disclosure section for visitors' logs. Based on the last White House post, from March 26, regarding the logs, I don't believe records after December 31, 2009, have been disclosed.

Still, using White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina's last name, I searched the logs, to see if anything showed up disclosing the names of everyone who was at that February 1 meeting, and found nothing of relevance related to that meeting.

However, the search revealed that on November 11, 2009, which is Veteran's Day, Messina held a meeting with Joe Solmonese and David M. Smith of HRC. From the White House disclosure section:

Visitor: SMITH DAVID M
Visitee: MESSINA JIM
Location: WH WW [White House, West Wing]
Date: 2009-11-11
Time of arrival: 14:45:00
Time of departure: 15:41:00

Visitor: SOLMONESE JOSEPH R
Visitee: MESSINA JIM
Location: WH WW [White House, West Wing]
Date: 2009-11-11
Time of arrival: 14:45:00
Time of departure: 15:41:00

Looking over all such records for Messina, no other names are shown for anyone else attending that meeting that lasted almost one-hour.

What was discussed at the meeting? Did HRC leaders and Messina agree on a plan for DADT repeal, a plan we see today that isn't delivering a transparent, winning strategy to lift the ban on open gay people in the U.S. military? How would Solmonese and Smith characterize the November 11 sit-down?

Thanks to the White House's transparency on visitor logs, we know about this meeting. Now if we could only get more info on it from HRC, I'd applaud their effort to give the gay community a look at how HRC lobbies the White House on our behalf.