White House visitor logs

Judge won't order disclosure of Trump White House visitor logs

By JOSH GERSTEIN

A federal judge has rejected a bid by several public interest groups to force release of a broad set of logs of visitors to the Trump White House.

In a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Failla declined to depart from a 2013 federal appeals court decision that found visitor records for the Obama White House were not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

As a Manhattan-based judge, Failla was not obligated to follow the 2013 opinion from the D.C. Circuit, but most judges defer to that court on FOIA matters and she chose to do so in the legal fight over the White House logs.

The National Security Archive, the Knight First Amendment Institute and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed suit last year in an effort to get details on who was visiting the Trump White House, as well as other places frequented by the president, such as his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Lawyers for the groups contended that the visitor records effectively belong to the Secret Service, which uses them to vet visitors and to admit them to the White House. However, Failla ruled that changes the Obama White House imposed on handling of the records in 2015 "reinforced the conclusion" that the records are presidential files beyond the reach of FOIA.

"The Secret Service’s ability to utilize and dispose of these records is subject to constraints imposed by the White House that were not present" in 2013, Failla wrote in her 70-page opinion.

Failla, an Obama appointee, said that although core White House offices are entitled to keep their visitors secret, the Secret Service is still obligated to release visitor records for several parts of the Executive Office of the President that are subject to FOIA, like the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The Trump administration settled a similar lawsuit in February by agreeing to disclose many of the visits to those offices. Some such records began emerging in April, but there some ambiguity remained about how the settlement would be interpreted.

Knight Institute lawyer Alex Abdo expressed disappointment in Failla's decision.

"The purpose of the Freedom of Information Act is to expose the workings of our government to public scrutiny, and there are few records as important to that purpose as those showing who wields influence over the president," Abdo said via email Thursday night. "Although the court recognized that some visitor logs must be disclosed by the Executive Office of the President, we’re disappointed the court did not order the release of the White House's visitor logs — a decision contrary both to FOIA and to the public interest."

An attorney for CREW, Anne Weismann, said her group was considering its options to respond to the ruling.

The Justice Department declined to comment, and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Efforts to seek details on Trump's visitors at Mar-a-Lago have been largely unsuccessful, with the Secret Service maintaining that there is little information on who saw him there, particularly during his early visits as president.