Trump doesn’t want you to know who visits the White House
The Trump administration, in a reversal of the Obama administration’s policy, won’t be releasing the logs of who visits the White House, it was announced Friday.
Michael Dubke, the administration’s director of communications, defended the reversal, saying it was based on “the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.”
Team Trump based its decision on a federal court ruling that most of the logs are “presidential records” and not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
Officials said continuing to release the records could interfere with policy development, among other things.
After some litigation, the Obama White House began releasing the visitor records on a delayed basis.
White House lawyers also deleted names for national security and other reasons before the logs were made public. The Obama administration eventually released nearly 6 million visitor records.
A liberal watchdog, the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a lawsuit earlier this month to open the records. That suit is pending.