Google’s Extraordinary Access to Obama Revealed as White House Visitor logs Show 427 Meetings Between Company and Administration Officials
By: Geoff Earle, Daily Mail, 5/17/16
When top White House officials want to know what Google executives are thinking, they don’t need to go near a computer – since company officials have been hovering at the White House about once a week through the course of the Obama administration, White House logs reveal.
The tech giant’s top lobbyist, Johanna Shelton, has visited the White House a total of 128 times since President Obama got elected in 2009.
Shelton visited the White House more than any top 50 lobbying firm, according to White House visitor logs analyzed by a nonprofit called the Google Transparency Project that is critical of the company’s influence.
Shelton met four times with President Obama himself, clocking more White House face time than any other industry lobbyist, Watchdog.org reported.
According the data, she visited more than the lobbyists for five other tech giants combined. In fact, she visited the White House 40 percent more often than her second and third place rivals, lobbyists for Blue Cross / Blue Shield and Exxon/Mobil.
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