WHITE

HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS ASSOCIATION

600 NEW HAMPSHIRE AVE. NW, SUITE 800
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20037



Jennifer Palmieri
Communications Director
Hillary for America




October 18, 2016

Dear Jennifer:
The White House Correspondents' Association expresses its profound concern and
consternation at the Clinton campaigns failure to establish a protective pool at this late date
on the political calendar and urges you to remedy the situation without delay for the remainder
of the 2016 campaign.
The implementation of a protective pool of journalists has a decades-long, bipartisan precedent,
anchored securely to the principles of the First Amendment. In 2008, Barack Obama and John
McCain began their protective pools in June and July respectively, each prior to their nominating
conventions. Mitt Romney began his protective pool in August 2012. George W. Bush began his
protective pool in September 2000.
Establishing a protective pool now will ease the process of forming one on Nov. 9 if Secretary
Clinton wins on Election Day. The WHCA expects the new president-elect to have a protective
pool immediately, just like the president does, and we are set to take over coordination of the
pooling process from the campaign press corps directly after the election. Not having a
protective pool accompany the president-elect would be a particularly serious breach of
historical precedent and First Amendment responsibilities. It would prompt consistent and
public criticism from the White House press corps, represented by the WHCA board. We urge
you to take steps now to ensure that a protective pool is put in place.
The events of Sunday, Sept. 11 underline the purpose and importance of a protective pool
arrangement. Reporters covering Secretary Clintons attendance at the 9/11 memorial
ceremony in New York were not permitted to observe her departure from the event and were
not notified that she had left. That failure of transparency about Secretary Clintons
whereabouts and condition created an unnecessary panic about her health situation that
dominated the news cycle for days. Having a protective pool would have remedied the kind of
chaos and speculation that resulted from those events, which did not serve the publics interest.
Our concerns about transparency, access, and the timely flow of information from the
presidential candidates are not limited to the Clinton campaign. Republican nominee Donald
Trump also has failed to implement a protective pool, in addition to declining to accommodate
press on his aircraft. We recognize that Secretary Clinton, by contrast, has a campaign plane that

accommodates traveling press. That does not assuage our concerns about the lack of a
protective pool, however. We urge the Clinton campaign not to use the Republican nominees
posture on transparency and press access as the bar against which it measures itself. We will
continue to advocate for the publics interest in full transparency from both campaigns and
during the post-election transition going forward.
Thank you for your prompt attention to these concerns. Please let us know if we can help with
any additional information.
Respectfully,


The White House Correspondents Association
Jeff Mason, President
Margaret Talev, Vice President
Olivier Knox, Vice President-elect