Unlucky Pierre: Logs show no more White House invitations for Omidyar after launch of The Intercept

By Paul CarrOn July 5, 2014

Back in March, I revealed that Pierre Omidyar, his wife Pamela and Omidyar Network’s managing partner Matthew Bannick had received over a dozen invitations to the White House to meet senior Obama administration officials including the President, First Lady and a Senior Director of the National Security Council. These visits came in the run up to Omidyar Network co-investing with the US State Department in opposition groups which later were credited with triggering the revolution (and now full-on civil war) in Ukraine, and regime change elsewhere.

As I noted at the time, the visits seemed to have come to a shuddering halt once Omidyar announced he was launching First Look Media and hiring Snowden-ally Glenn Greenwald to head its anti-NSA vertical, the Intercept.

Now it seems clear this wasn’t a temporary freeze-out. According to the latest batch of visitor data, released just a few days ago, and covering the first quarter of 2014, neither Pierre and Pamela Omidyar, nor any Omidyar Network executives or staffers whatsoever have been invited to 1600 Pennsylvania avenue since the announcement of First Look. This as the document show other tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt continuing to come and go, along with fellow left-leaning philanthropists like George Soros and media bosses including CNN president Jeff Zucker.

Still, even if Omidyar and his Network are currently personas non grata in the Obama White House, echoes of his previous political influence continue to resonate. As Mark Ames revealed last month, Jayant Sinha, the former head of Omidyar Network in India had a secret second job helping to elect new Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  Today Sinha no longer works for Omidyar, having taken a parliamentary seat, representing Modi’s BJP.

In other words, even if Pierre Omidyar is apparently no longer welcome at 1600 Pennsylania Avenue in DC, he can at least rest assured of a guaranteed warm bed at 7, Race Course Road in New Delhi.