Lauren Windsor, a liberal blogger who hosts an online news program called "The Undercurrent," obtained audio recordings of the secret gathering, which was held at a resort near Laguna Beach, California.
As the caucus meeting got underway it was clear that Paul supporters had packed the gathering, which was held at the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Educational Campus, an elite private school in Summerlin, a Las Vegas community.
Her underlings had at first barred a pair of aid groups from the gathering, which was held to pledge assistance for Afghanistan, but Mrs Tanaka decided to invite the two groups anyway.
Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, who was Mr. Romney's running mate, and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, the Tea Party favorite, also addressed the gathering, which was held over two days at the luxury Stein Eriksen Lodge, against a backdrop of snowless ski trails.
An appetite for smoked-salmon canapés and pinot noir was all that was required of guests at the evening's gathering, which was held at Trinity's rectory, a town house on Charlton Street that was built by John Jacob Astor in 1826 and was acquired by the church in 2004, for five and a half million dollars.
At the gathering, which was held a week before the Paris climate agreement came into force on Friday, indigenous leaders from Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela said their governments were ignoring their land rights, which are legally enshrined in the Consultation with Indigenous Peoples Law (guaranteed in the International Labour Organisation's Convention 169).
A series of news conferences on economic policy — a third was held on Saturday evening on efforts to encourage industrial innovation — came as the 2,268 delegates to the Party Congress attended closed-door meetings on the third day of the gathering, which is held every five years.
The gathering in Southampton, which was held ahead of the 100th anniversary of the liner sinking, is believed to be the largest of its kind.
The group now commandeers a hotel or convention center for its annual gatherings, the most recent of which was held in September in Flagstaff, Ariz., near the state highpoint of Humphreys Peak, and drew more than 250 people, including an Elvis impersonator as part of a bid by Mississippi highpointers to hold the 2009 convention in their state.
In January, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a Koch-backed nonprofit, provided a live-streamed broadcast of Republican presidential candidates' appearances at its private donor gathering -- a first for the event, which is held twice a year.
There is no gathering of technology geeks more exclusive than TED Technologyy, Entertainment, Design), which is held each spring in Monterey.
