Complicating the picture is the fact that just because a meeting was scheduled and Shulman was cleared to attend it does not mean that he actually went. Routine events like the biweekly health-care deputies meeting would have had a standing list of people cleared to attend, people whose White House appointments would have been logged and forwarded to the check-in gate. But there is no time of arrival information in the records to confirm that Shulman actually signed in and went to these standing meetings.



Indeed, of the 157 events Shulman was cleared to attend, White House records only provide time of arrival information -- confirming that he actually went to them -- for 11 events over the 2009-2012 period, and time of departure information for only six appointments. According to the White House records, Shulman signed in twice in 2009, five times in 2010, twice in 2011, and twice in 2012. That does not mean that he did not go to other meetings, only that the White House records do not show he went to the 157 meetings he was granted Secret Service clearance to attend.

Also, at least one event Shulman says he attended is not part of the visitor's access records. From a Ways and Means Committee IRS hearing, as reported by the Daily Caller:



"What would be some of the reasons you might be at the White House?" Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly asked Shulman during a congressional hearing last week. "Um, the Easter Egg Roll with my kids," Shulman replied. "Questions about the administrability of tax policy they were thinking of; our budget; us helping the Department of Education streamline application processes for financial aid."

But there is no record that Shulman attended a White House Easter Egg Roll under Obama, most likely because large events organized by the East Wing, like that one, don't always show up in the visitor's access records. Neither do visits by staffers, journalists covering large events, or people who enter the White House grounds in their pre-cleared cars, like Cabinet members, who do not wait for badge swipes at the gate with the policymaking hoi polloi.

The Daily Caller breathlessly reported: "An analysis by The Daily Caller of the White House's public 'visitor access records' showed that every current and former member of President Obama's Cabinet would have had to rack up at least 60 more public visits to the president's home to catch up with 'Douglas Shulman'" before conceding by the end of the article, "it is probable that the vast majority of visits by major Cabinet members do not end up in the public record." Indeed.

The real problem with combing through the White House visitor logs is that they were a system designed for Secret Service clearance and White House security, not as comprehensive means of documenting every visitor to the White House, high to low. They miss the top end and some of the social end of people visiting the White House -- people who are cleared through separate processes designed to protect presidential security other than getting swiped in at the front gate for an appointment.