WASHINGTON — The White House has hosted captains of Wall Street, health care executives and prominent Democratic supporters during President Barack Obama’s first seven months in office, according to visitor logs released Wednesday.
A list of 1,600 visits to the Executive Mansion, from Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20 through Sept. 15, illustrates the range of weighty issues — the teetering economy, health care reform, climate change — confronting the new administration.
White House visitors from the corporate world have included General Electric chief executive Jeffrey Immelt, who met with Obama’s congressional affairs chief; and U.S. Bancorp CEO Richard Davis, who led a delegation of 16 bank leaders to see Obama in May.
Another frequent visitor was T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire energy investor and wind-energy champion, who visited three times.
The visitor logs also show a handful of major Obama fundraisers, such as philanthropist Alan Solomont, who bundled more than $500,000 in donations for Obama’s campaign and has since been nominated as U.S. ambassador to Spain.
The disclosures also come after decades of controversy over the presidential access afforded to rich and powerful supporters.
One of the most frequent visitors on the list was U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donohue, whose organization has complained bitterly of being left out of energy, health care and financial reform efforts and who is leading opposition to White House plans on those issues. Donohue nonetheless visited the White House nearly a dozen times from February to June, including three encounters with the president.
