Carney Defends WH Donors Meeting

The Hill reports:

White House press secretary Jay Carney is defending President Barack Obama's decision to meet in the White House residence with top Wall Street donors who could be key fundraisers for his reelection bid. The New York Times, which disclosed the session in a story in Monday editions, said the confab was organized by the Democratic National Committee. On the surface, the meeting sounds somewhat like controversial DNC-arranged coffees that President Bill Clinton held at the White House during the 1996 campaign.

"What needs to be made clear is, contrary to suggestions otherwise, this was not a fundraiser. And the fact that a president meets with his supporters in the business arena to solicit ideas about how to improve the economy is surely a dog-bites-man story," Carney told reporters during a gaggle aboard Air Force One on Tuesday. "It's something that presidents of both parties have always done. So, I don’t know what else to say about it."

The question put to Carney was not about the propriety of the meeting but about why it didn't appear on Obama's public schedule despite pledges to be transparent about his daily agenda. The press secretary shed little light on that discrepancy.