White House visitor logs: Still off-limits

by Mark Silva and updated

Back in the days when everyone wanted to know how often the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff had entered the White House, the Bush White House refused to give up its visitor logs.

Now, with a watchdog group attempting to find out when coal and energy industry officials visited the White House, the Obama White House is holding back the same logs. The White House also says it is reviewing the policy of its predecessor.

The group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed suit in federal court today after a denial of its Freedom of Information request for Secret Service records, including White House entry and exit logs, identifying coal and energy industry visitors.

The records are not subject to disclosure under FOIA, the Department of Homeland Security told CREW. The records are governed by the Presidential Records Act, DHS says, and the Justice Department has advised that releasing these records could reveal information protected by the presidential communications privilege.

The Bush administration fought this issue on the same legal ground, in a case now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Days before Obama took office, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth rejected the Bush administration's argument that releasing Secret Service logs of White House visitation would impede the president's ability to perform his constitutional duties. The court said that the likelihood of harm was not great enough to inhibit the Freedom of Information Act.

In the spring of 2006 when various groups were looking for Abramoff's White House visits, the White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement declaring the Secret Service logs identifying visitors to the White House are not open to the public.

This is what Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, had to say about the disclosure of visitor logs when asked about it at today's press briefing:

Q What's the policy going to be on release of the names of White House visitors?
MR. GIBBS: The policy -- as you know, I think many of you know, this has involved -- visitor logs have been involved in some litigation dating back to sometime in 2006. The White House is reviewing that policy based on some of that litigation.
Q So it's just -- you're not going either way on it now? You're not refusing to --
MR. GIBBS: We're viewing -- we're viewing what had been the policy of -- the previous policy.
Q Who's doing that review?
MR. GIBBS: The White House Counsel's Office and other people in the administration.
Q What's their length for the review?
MR. GIBBS: I don't -- I don't know the exact timeline.
Q Are they going to be more transparent than the previous administration?
MR. GIBBS: I think we ran on that --
Q In this regard.
MR. GIBBS: That's what under review.
Q Is that the goal?
MR. GIBBS: What's the goal?
Q Is that the goal, to be more transparent on these visitor logs than the previous administration?
MR. GIBBS: The goal is -- and I think the president, who underscored his commitment to transparency on his first full day in office -- this is not a contest between this administration or that administration or any administration. It's to uphold the principle of open government.
Q Why would the president have any objection to the public knowing who's -- who's coming in here to visit?
MR. GIBBS: I think we've taken actions to let people know who are. I think, again, Peter, this dates back to litigation long before -- long before we ever showed up.
Q So you think you might have to uphold precedent here, possibly?
MR. GIBBS: Well, that's part of what's being reviewed by the counsel's office.

Wire services contributed to this report.