Barack Obama's Guest List: White House Response

Meredith Jessup | October 31, 2009 11:16 AM

Since some controversial people like William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Malik Shabazz appeared on the White House guest list, the WH has made the following statement:

A lot of people visit the White House, up to 100,000 each month, with many of those folks coming to tour the buildings. Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few “false positives” – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else. In September, requests were submitted for the names of some famous or controversial figures (for example Michael Jordan, William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Robert Kelly ("R. Kelly"), and Malik Shabazz). The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.