A federal judge rejected a bid that would have forced the release of a broad number of logs of visitors to President Donald Trump’s White House, Politico reported.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Failla declined departing from a 2013 decision from the D.C. Circuit that found that visitor logs for the White House during the Barack Obama administration were not subject to disclosure using the Freedom of Information Act.
The National Security Archive, the Knight First Amendment Institute, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued in 2017 for the logs to be released, in an effort to reveal details on who was visiting the Trump White House and other places the president frequents, such as his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, Politico reported.
The groups' lawyers’ contention was that visitor records belonged to the Secret Service, but the judge ruled that the records were presidential files that are beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act.
Knight Institute lawyer Alex Abdo noted disappointment over 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 in email Thursday, Politico reported.
The Secret Service has said that there is little information on who has visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago, particularly during his early months as president, a Secret Service official said in September 2017, Politico reported at the time.
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