Politics

White House defends Obama’s high dollar appointments

Amanda Seitz Contributor
Font Size:

President Barack Obama has placed some of his friends — nearly 200 of them — in high places.

iWatch News reported Wednesday that roughly one-third of appointments made by Obama were either bundlers who paid out at least $50,000 to the president’s 2008 campaign or spouses of these high rollers.

Nearly 80 percent of the bundlers who raised at least $500,000 ended up in what the White House described as “key administration posts,” the report found.

But, according to  the White House, Obama has been completely blind to hiring candidates who donated money to his 2008 campaign.

“The president made clear that he would make political appointments, as every president before him has, but we have enacted ethical standards and levels of transparency that are unprecedented,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday upon the release of the report.

Carney said the White House stands by every appointment that’s been made.

The iWatch report, however, claims that Obama is not standing by the promises he made during the campaign.

(Obama, Boehner to meet on the green)

When Obama launched his campaign on Feb. 10, 2007, iWatch reported that he was quoted as saying, “(The lobbyists, special interests) write the checks and you get stuck with the bill, they get the access while you get to write a letter, they think they own this government, but we’re here today to take it back.”

Carney continued to insist that the president has every right to appoint former donors.

“It would be wrong if they weren’t qualified,” Carney said. “It’s not a disqualification for office to be a supporter of the president.”

The iWatch report also reveals that many of those donors who were appointed also have associations to companies that received millions in stimulus funds.

Carney denied any wrongdoing, stating that stimulus funds were doled out by a separate entity of the government.

“The vast majority of companies that got stimulus money, a process which is largely done in agencies … the vast majority of companies were not donors,” Carney said.

To prove that not all appointments were made because of hefty monetary contributions to the Obama campaign, Carney pointed to himself.

“I didn’t raise a half-million dollars,” Carney said. “I didn’t raise any money. I’m standing here.”

Carney’s exception-to-the-rule example isn’t that impressive. At the time of Obama’s 2008 campaign he was the chief Washington bureau editor for Time magazine and unable to contribute to political campaigns.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel