Glenn Beck dedicated his opening monologue last night to discussing the IRS scandal during which he highlighted a story from his own The Blaze website entitled “Is This the ‘Smoking Gun’ That Ties the IRS Scandal to the White House?”
Citing the story, Beck raised questions about why the president of the IRS employee’s union was at the White House the day before the IRS implemented the policy supposedly targeting conservative groups.
“Is that a coincidence?” Beck asked. “I don’t know if we’re going to find out because the damage control has already begun. [The White House] just released a statement denying that Kelly even met with the President or the First Lady; quote ‘President Kelly did not have any direct contact – key word there, ‘direct’ – with the President or the First Lady.’ Okay. What were you doing there?”
If Beck had bothered to even read the very story he was citing, he would have found the answer to his question of what Kelly was doing there:
First, Kelley visiting the White House in March of 2010 is not in of itself an extraordinary event. Indeed, according to Visitor Logs, she had already met with President Obama on a few occasions.
Second, we must point out that 117 “total people” were present at the 2010 White House forum on “Worplace Flexibility,” which the log lists as the reason for the visit. To be fair, that seems to point to a larger event as opposed to Kelley meeting with Obama behind closed doors.
Third, according to visitor records, the 2010 forum was held in the White House’s South Court Auditorium, which as former White House communications worker Josh King points out, is simply a large auditorium.
“On most days, South Court Auditorium is a generic, stadium-style meeting room with four or five rows of seats; space in the back of the room for cameras sitting on tripods; a small buffer area in front of the stage for still photographers to capture the key moment; and handy backstage doors for easy ingress and egress by the principals,” King explains.
Not exactly top-secret, private meeting material here.
