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Saturday, July 11, 2009

Joe Bidens Secret Meetings:

Vice-President Joe Biden has lots of secret meetings, meaning the press is not allowed in and no announcement of who he is meeting with is released. In other words, the Nation's Vice-President meets often, and with many, in...secret.

Joe Biden
Biden refers to these secret meetings as "closed to the press" meetings, and the White House says they are not secret meetings and they are not "private" meetings, they are just meetings that are closed to press. It all depends on what the meaning of is is. From Top of the Ticket (it's a good article and it's short):
Loyal Ticket readers know that, as a patriotic duty, we monitor the longtime senator's schedule with a close eye for detail because, after all, this man is only a heartbeat away from having to give a toast at a G-8 summit. We've especially noted Biden's innumerable "private meetings" that are closed to the press because, well, they're private. And we've wondered aloud how this Democratic VP's private meetings with unnamed people on unnamed subjects differs from the private meetings with unnamed people that his evil predecessor had that got so many Democratic senators and representatives worried about nefarious secrets.
In another report by Top of the Ticket's Andrew Malcolm, he calls the White House after these closed meetings, and sometimes they tell him who Biden met or talked by phone with, and sometimes they do not:
However, because this is the most transparent presidential administration in national history, after these private phone calls, Biden's schedule calls for him to spend the rest of the day in "private meetings." These are also closed to the media. So no one knows who they are with or what the subjects of conversation are.
Mid-June the White House gave a statement about "secret" meetings:

The administration ought to be able to hold secret meetings in the White House, “such as an elected official interviewing for an administration position or an ambassador coming for a discussion on issues that would affect international negotiations,” said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.

The Bush administration made the same arguments, which were ruled against twice in federal court. In fact, before his election, Obama promised that he would end the Bush administration’s practice of holding secret meetings in the White House, which is supposed to be “the people’s house”...

The White House is currently involved in a lawsuit with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to reveal the White House visitors logs:
We're suing because the Obama Administration has made it clear that they are continuing the policies and practices of the Bush administration and claiming that White House visitors' records are off limits to the public, said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW
Every day there are reports that information is withheld from the public due to the "presidential communications privilege." It is reasonable that the text of every single conversation in the White House not be revealed, but all incoming and outgoing phone calls and all visitors logs should be completely transparent.

©2007-2012copyrightMaggie M. Thornton