The Democratic vice-chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission earned an invitation to the White House in January, according to a new report, thanks in large part to her effort to regulate online political content like the Drudge Report.
White House visitor logs show that Ann Ravel traveled to the White House first on Jan. 20, and then again on Jan. 28 to meet with President Obama. Stacy Koo, chief of staff in the Presidential Personnel Office, also attended the meeting, according to the logs, which were first reported on Tuesday by the Daily Beast.
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Ravel has repeatedly slammed her colleagues as “dysfunctional” for refusing to regulate content online. She has also suggested that the other commissioners be removed, and that the commission be restructured to ensure that one party is able to hold a partisan majority. Statute requires that the panel be split evenly, with three seats held by each Republicans and Democrats.
“The president is pleased with Commissioner Ravel’s performance as an FEC commissioner,” the White House said in a statement, though it declined to comment on specifics of Ravel’s meeting with the president.
Ravel has said she has received death threats after she proposed regulating websites like the Drudge Report. In particular, that involved an October 2014 story by the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard, headlined “Dems on FEC move to regulate Internet campaigns, blogs, Drudge.”
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“A re-examination of the commission’s approach to the Internet and other emerging technologies is long overdue,” Ravel was quoted in that story as saying. As a result, she suggested, she received threats from users on the Internet. FEC spokeswoman Judith Ingram confirmed that shortly afterward, Ravel referred the matter to the Federal Protective Service, a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
In spite of the threats and dissatisfaction with her colleagues, Ravel said she had no intention of leaving the commission anytime soon, saying she “will stay as long as I feel I can contribute.”
“These are an attempt to be intimidating, to make me either not speak out or to make me stop doing my job,” she added. “It’s creepy, a little worrisome. I’m just going to keep doing my work.”
