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Memos Suggest White House Database Used To Reward Donors
White House says there was no misuse
By Wolf Blitzer/CNN
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, March 11) -- Newly released documents indicate the aide who created a taxpayer-funded computer database inside the White House saw it as a tool to reward the president's financial supporters. But the White House says the database was only used for official purposes.
"The president has requested that an immediate effort be made to reach out to his friends and early supporters," aide Marsha Scott wrote in a Nov. 1, 1994 memo to Erskine Bowles and Harold Ickes, the two White House deputy chiefs of staff at the time.
"This is the president's idea and it is a good one," she wrote. "We have already seen results. People are thrilled to be contacted and are already energized ... As these supporters are identified and located, the president has asked that they be included in White House social functions as well as policy briefings."
The documents were made available to the House Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs, chaired by Rep. David McIntosh (R-Ind.) Scott's memo had been previously provided to the committee, but with portions censored.
Scott's memo said that the Democratic National Committee was slow in initial cultivation of supporters.
"There is very little outreach to early supporters coming from the DNC," she wrote. "Until they are better organized and can do more, the need is there and the job must be done."
Despite the document, White House deputy press secretary Barry Toiv denied that the database, which included information on over 200,000 donors, supporters, friends, legislators, dignitaries and journalists, was used for political purposes.
"The database was used entirely for official purposes," he said. "There is no information to suggest otherwise."
Toiv said that donors made up a small part of the information in the White House Office Data Base (dubbed WhoDB by aides), but said that the memos made it clear WhoDB was "envisioned as a way of inviting people ... to events at the White House."
For weeks, McIntosh has charged that the White House had illegally used the federally funded database to generate political support for the president's re-election campaign. On Monday, McIntosh labeled the memo's original deletions an "effort to cover up" the database's purpose, and said the newly released portions were the "clearest evidence we have" of what that purpose was.