One day after news came out last week that President Obama asked for and would receive early screeners of the Game of Thrones season 6 episodes, journalist Vanessa Golembewski applied through the Freedom of Information Act that the president must “share his advance screeners” with the American people.
At the Game of Thrones premiere event in Hollywood on Sunday, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss confirmed rumors that Barack Obama wanted – and was going to get – episodes of their ultra-secret show ahead of their debut on HBO. “Only Obama Gets Game Of Thrones Screeners, So I Filed An FOIA Request For Them” is the title of Golembewski’s story, filed with Refinery29.com, asking, Why did Obama get these highly coveted assets?
“He’s the leader of the free world,” she quoted Weiss, who added, “When the commander-in-chief says, ‘I want to see advanced episodes,’ what are you gonna do?”
“This was my first time filing a FOIA request and I wasn’t really prepared to explain myself on a government form. I went for the most direct approach. Under ‘Description,’ I wrote: ‘I would like President Obama to share his advance screeners for Game of Thrones with the public.’ Plus, the FOIA site mentioned that the simpler the request, the faster it would be to process.”
“Perhaps, in one of his final cool-president moves,” Golembewski wrote about Obama, “he will thoroughly recap the first couple episodes of GoT in a vlog or something.”