Trump Administration Kills Open.Gov, Will Not Release White House Visitor Logs

from the beat-it,-serfs dept

It will never be said that the Trump presidency began with a presumption of openness. His pre-election refusal to release his tax returns set a bit of precedent in that regard. The immediate post-election muffling of government agency social media accounts made the administration's opacity goals… um… clearer.

So, in an unsurprising move, the Trump administration will be doing the opposite of the Obama administration. The American public will no longer have the privilege of keeping tabs on White House visitors. (h/t Alex Howard)

The Trump Administration will not disclose logs of those who visit the White House complex, breaking with his predecessor, the White House announced Friday.

The administration is justifying this reversal with the usual: favorable interpretations of FOIA lawsuit rulings and "national security" mumbling.

White House communications director Michael Dubke said the decision to reverse the Obama-era policy was due to “the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.” Instead, the Trump Administration is relying on a federal court ruling that most of the logs are “presidential records” and are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

Yes, it's sadly true. The administration can use this ruling to lock the public out of this small layer of transparency. The rest of it, however, is bullshit.

Whatever "national security risks" may exist during White House visits should be addressed by intelligence agencies and the Secret Service rather than being withheld from the public. The White House hosts top foreign government officials all the time and it is always a "national security risk." Disclosing who's visited the White House AFTER THEY'VE ALREADY LEFT does zero damage to national security.

Additionally, there are likely several visitors to the White House every year that aren't logged for security reasons, and if it's really that much of a concern, the administration could release the logs with redactions, like Obama did.

As for visitors who aren't government officials (domestic or foreign), it's pretty imaginative to assume visits to the most well-known home of public servants in the free world carry with it some form of unbreachable privacy.

On top of everything else, it's extremely hypocritical for the administration to pretend this is about privacy and security when the president has been hosting government official get-togethers at resorts -- a place where logs aren't kept and "national security risks" seem to be less of a concern than how many holes Trump can fit in between government business.

So, to further distance himself from the people he serves (and the people who elected him), Trump and his administration have shut down the transparency portal put in place by the previous Commander-in-Chief:

White House officials said the Administration is ending the contract for Open.gov, the Obama-era site that hosted the visitor records along with staff financial disclosures, salaries, and appointments.

The administration can't even perform this move without meaningless, self-justifying dissembling. It's not about keeping secrets, of course. It's about saving taxpayers money [eyeroll]:

An official said it would save $70,000 through 2020 and that the removed disclosures, salaries and appointments would be integrated into WhiteHouse.gov in the coming months.

Thanks, Trump. I love the phrase "coming months," which means anytime between 2018 and never. The smart money's on not seeing any financial disclosures until nearly a year from now, at the earliest. The only way we'll see anything sooner is if some White House cabinet scandal manages to dislodge it first. Plus, there's this, from Trump himself, who obviously has no idea his past tweets are accessible by everyone:

Why does Obama believe he shouldn't comply with record releases that his predecessors did of their own volition? Hiding something? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2012

If you can't see the tweet, it's Trump calling out Obama for doing the same thing Trump is now doing: rolling back a predecessor's openness.

Why does Obama believe he shouldn't comply with record releases that his predecessors did of their own volition? Hiding something?

President Obama was better talking about transparency than engaging in it. President Trump, on the other hand, has expressed zero interest in transparency and appears to be rolling back anything "open" Obama grudgingly put into place. Maybe it's better to have White House animosity towards openness and accountability right there on the surface. But right now, it really doesn't feel like an improvement.

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Filed Under: donald trump, foia, open.gov, transparency, visitor logs