Many of the guests, not surprisingly, were contributors to Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate campaign. A NEWSWEEK analysis of the list found several others who are notable both for the size of their donations and where they made them.
Among those who showed up on the new Lincoln Bedroom overnight list was Samuel Heyman, the president of GAF Corp., a Wayne, New Jersey roofing firm that is facing huge potential liabilities from hundreds of pending asbestos lawsuits. During the past year, Heyman has been engaged in an intensive lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill on behalf of legislation that would authorize a federally managed fund to handle the asbestos claims–a measure that could save his company millions of dollars.
Heyman’s company has made $461,000 in recent soft-money donations, $229,000 of them to Democratic Party accounts. He did not return a phone call seeking comment on Friday. A GAF spokesman says he is unable to provide any further information about when Heyman stayed at the White House or whether he had ever discussed his asbestos bill with the president. Curiously, most other political donors who were overnight guests were listed by the White House in a category described as “friends and supporters.” Heyman was listed in a different category–“longtime friends”–although a database search found no previous references to a friendship between the asbestos magnate and the First Family.
Then there’s Vinod Gupta, the Omaha, Nebraska-based president of InfoUSA, a computer database company. Gupta contributed or raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Al Gore’s campaign, the Democratic National Committee and–perhaps most significantly–the Clinton library in Little Rock. Gupta, who stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom last October at the invitation of Hillary Clinton, also raised about $100,000 for her Senate campaign last March. He told NEWSWEEK that he had also pledged $1 million to the president’s library last year–a project Clinton sees as critical to shaping his legacy.
The president and his chief fundraiser, Terry McAuliffe, have been aggressively raising tens of millions of dollars for the presidential library during the past year, holding a series of highly exclusive private fundraisers and parties that are reserved for the president’s wealthiest donors and top corporate executives. But unlike campaign contributors, donors to the Clinton library have yet to be publicly disclosed–something that has drawn sharp criticism from some public interest groups. However, a number of overnight guests have been identified as major Clinton library donors, including movie magnate Steven Spielberg, Hollywood mogul Haim Saban, and Slimfast Diet executive Daniel Abraham.
One Democratic Party source tells NEWSWEEK that the Clintons have used Lincoln Bedroom overnight invitations for library donors even more than contributors to the Democratic Party or Hillary Clinton’s campaign, although the source acknowledges that there was inevitably a large overlap among those groups.
Gupta dismissed the idea that there was any quid pro quo between his donations and his overnight stay at the White House. Neither the First Lady nor the president “ever asked me for money,” says Gupta. But he didn’t dispute the idea that he and others were being rewarded for their political generosity. “That’s how it goes.” he says. “This happens in every administration.”
The list of overnight guests at the White House and Camp David showed 404 names–an average of more than one guest a day–during the past 14 months. Those guests–Hollywood celebrities, corporate executives, old Arkansas pals and others–have contributed a total of $624,000 to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.
White House press secretary Joe Lockhart says it is simply “basic, common-sense” that the president’s “friends” would support the Clintons financially. And, like Gupta, he disputes the idea that the Lincoln Bedroom was being auctioned off to big donors–or that the overnight guests were looking for any government favors from the president.
Another longtime Democratic Party fundraiser, who asked not to be identified, made the same point, insisting that the large number of overnight visitors in recent months mainly reflected the president’s desire for company. “With Hillary gone all the time, he’s inviting a ton of people,” says the fundraiser. " Just about everybody he sees these days, he says, ‘come stay with me before I leave’.. the guy hates to be alone."
Gupta, for his part, says his stay in the Lincoln Bedroom wasn’t nearly all that it’s cracked up to be. After his overnight, Gupta said he felt uncomfortable in the White House, because he felt as if he were being watched all the time. The next morning, he ran into Clinton and told him: “I feel like I’m in a jail.” Clinton’s reply: “I know how you feel.”
