White House visits are cash cow for Biden

Shortly before Christmas, four billionaires with a long history of writing checks to Democrats were escorted into the White House, past the candy-themed holiday decorations and down the steps to the ground-floor Map Room.

There, the group heard directly from President Joe Biden about his second-term agenda and were able to ask him questions about his campaign and policy, according to two people familiar with the meeting granted anonymity to discuss a private discussion.

One day later, an attendee at the meeting, Mark Pincus, a tech entrepreneur, donated the maximum allowed — $929,600 — to Biden’s joint fundraising committee, Biden Victory Fund. Within three weeks, another person in the meeting, venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, sent $923,000. A third attendee, former Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson, wrote a nearly half million dollar check two days before the meeting, according to campaign finance disclosure records.

The December gathering was one of roughly a dozen featuring a small group of longtime Democratic donors at the White House between last summer and March of this year, according to the White House visitor logs, which have been released through March. Many, if not all of them, included the president, according to the visitor logs and the people familiar with the meetings.

In many cases, attendees made a significant contribution to the Biden Victory Fund in the days or weeks afterward, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance data and the visitor logs over this year and last year. All told, of the 50 largest contributions to the Biden Victory Fund through the end of March, just over half (27) of the donors or their spouses had a meeting with a small group of people at the White House. Many of them — and additional donors — also attended other meetings or holiday parties or, in a handful of cases, state dinners at the White House.

The meetings — held long before the June debate that brought simmering concerns about Biden’s age to the fore — were designed to address any concerns of major Democratic donors, including policies and Biden’s cognitive abilities, by seeing Biden in action in a small setting.

Donors were anxious about the age issue but impressed with Biden in person, said a person who spoke with three attendees of recent meetings. “It makes Biden look good, and it definitely underscores the age point with these donors.”

The meetings came at a time when the Biden reelection campaign was ramping up and when it became more readily apparent that the president would need to rely more fully on megadonors rather than the grassroots fundraising spigot that had propelled his 2020 campaign. They began last summer and continued through the fall and winter and often included four to eight donors and Biden campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has been a powerhouse fundraiser for Democrats prior to taking a role in Biden’s campaign.

They were arranged on behalf of the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, led by Emmy Ruiz, according to a White House official. Many of the attendees were in the entertainment or tech industries or donated previously to Democrats.

Katzenberg’s “been advertising to donors that he’s spending time at White House, he can bring people in for lunch there, Biden stops by, and then those people max out,” said one Democratic strategist with direct knowledge of the meetings, granted anonymity to discuss private events.

A campaign official disputed that characterization, saying the meetings are thoughtful and informal sit-down conversations that delve into a range of topics that matter to supporters, such as climate, democracy or gun violence.

The conversations often include a more intimate version of Biden’s fundraiser speeches, including why he’s running, what he’s accomplished and the threat he sees in a second Donald Trump term, the official said. The meetings represent an opportunity for Biden to hear from supporters who aren’t in the D.C. bubble — and may not have gotten a chance to meet with the president since before the pandemic — and do not include an “ask” for a contribution, the official said.

The success has been evident in the data. Of the 16 people who wrote a single check for the maximum allowed amount — $929,600 — to the Biden Victory Fund, 11 of the individuals or their spouses had a small meeting at the White House. The Biden Victory Fund is a joint fundraising committee that ships the dollars to the president’s campaign limited to $6,600 per donor, the Democratic National Committee and various state Democratic parties.

It is not illegal for Biden to invite donors into the White House, and prior presidents have similarly used the grandeur and convenience of the building to connect with political supporters and donors. Dozens of former President Barack Obama’s campaign donors visited the White House more than once for meetings, parties and state dinners. Former President George W. Bush hosted at least nine donors for overnight visits. Former President Bill Clinton infamously invited donors to stay the night in the Lincoln bedroom. And Trump blurred the lines further, using the White House lawn to claim the Republican nomination in 2020.

“The President occasionally hosts supporters at the White House, a routine practice during every modern presidency regardless of party,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates. “We have been transparent and disclosed these meetings because President Biden set the highest ethical standards of any administration in history — including making this information available to the American people by releasing White House visitor logs, which the Trump Administration did not do.”

But ethics watchdogs question the practice of providing access to people with the financial means of writing nearly million-dollar checks. They argue that the meetings send a message at odds with Biden’s promise to crack down on big-moneyed interests.

“Certainly the optics on these things are very bad,” said Brendan Glavin, deputy research director at OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics. “We’re talking about people giving nearly a million dollars and getting access to the White House. That’s the type of thing that really feeds and fuels citizens’ loss of faith in the system when they hear about things like this.”

Federal election rules prohibit political activity on government property, but there are exceptions within the White House, given that the building serves dual roles as both a government office and the president’s residence. The Map Room, the site of the December meeting, is considered part of the residence. The visitor logs list other political meetings taking place there and in the White House residence. While many of the meetings are listed as taking place in room 209 in the West Wing, a White House official said meetings did not take place there and it was merely the office of the point of contact who coordinated Secret Service clearance for entrants.

All meetings between the president and supporters were held in parts of the residence that were cleared with the White House Counsel’s office, the official said.

The White House visitor logs, which the Biden administration reinstituted after Trump’s White House stopped the practice of publishing them and continue to release on a monthly basis, do not indicate what was discussed at these sessions.

The conversation at these meetings — sometimes a lunch or dinner — is casual, free-flowing and covers a variety of topics, according to the campaign official.

According to the visitor logs, the earliest of these intimate meetings with donors at the White House were last summer, as the White House was beginning to gear up for the reelection, and included a number of movie industry moguls.

Producer J.J. Abrams and his wife, fellow producer Kathleen McGrath, as well as Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman, met with Biden in the residence in early June. Director Steven Spielberg joined a small group at noon with Biden in the White House residence on July 7.

In October, Tullman contributed $904,600. On Nov. 30, Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, sent the maximum allowed to the Biden Victory Fund. Abrams and McGrath both contributed $500,000.