Who's the biggest lobbyist in the Oval Office? Here's the very surprising answer!

Lobbying is a corrupting influence on politics.

White House visitor logs can reveal who has the most access to the president. A new project that examines these logs reveals that Obama's favorite visitor is Google.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - Google is a regular visitor to the White House, and has been to the White House more times than any other lobbyists from any other organization. In fact, Johanna Shelton, the company's director of public policy, has been in the White House 128 times.

Other senior lobbyists for organizations such as Facebook, Amazon, Comcast, Oracle, and Verizon have made just 124 visits, combined. She's also visited more than Big Oil lobbyists (101 times) and all defense industry lobbyists (89 times).

Surprisingly, it was Google that reported itself to the media, though The Google Transparency Project, which reveals who visits the White House and how many times they do so. They have provided a graph which shows the top 50 regular visitors.

At the top of the graph well ahead of all others, is Shelton from Google.

These visits come to light at a time when lobbying is increasing. Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, spent $16.6 million on lobbying in 2015.

With access comes influence, and by viewing which lobbyists appear regularly at the White House, you can see which companies have the most influence on the Obama administration.

The problem is the entire system is "pay to play," with the wealthiest corporations getting the most play. As wealthy businesses buy more influence, they become more able to shape the laws and regulations that impact their industry. If the situation goes on long enough, the people being regulated by the law end up regulating themselves as they write their own regulations.

Washington is run by corporations, with candidates that are bought and paid for by lobbyists. It's tragic to see that this corruption extends into the White House, but unsurprising. Unless laws are passed to ban or restrict lobbying, there is little chance this situation will ever improve.