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Groups sue to obtain White House visitor
logs
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 [April 11, 2017]
By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A coalition of
nonprofit groups on Monday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
to obtain logs of visitors to President Donald Trump's homes.
The lawsuit accused the Secret Service, which maintains the logs, of
violating the law by ignoring several requests for lists of visitors to
the White House, Trump Tower in Manhattan, and the Mar-a-Lago estate in
Palm Beach, Florida.
Monday's complaint was filed in Manhattan federal court by the Citizens
for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the Knight First
Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the National Security
Archive, and archive researcher Kate Doyle.
The plaintiffs had requested the logs under the federal Freedom of
Information Act.
Similar litigation by CREW in 2009 prompted the Obama administration to
disclose White House visitor logs on a delayed basis, and according to
the complaint led to the release of 5.99 million records.
A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the
Secret Service, said the department does not discuss pending litigation.
The lawsuit was reported earlier by the Washington Post.
The website where White House visitor logs were available went dark
after Trump became president.
That page now reads: "This page is being updated. It will post records
of White House visitors on an ongoing basis, once they become
available."
(https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/visitor-records)
Several Democratic lawmakers last month called on Trump, a Republican,
to make logs public again.
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The White House is seen in front of the Washington Monument (L) and
the Jefferson Memorial (R) in Washington May 1, 2011. REUTERS/Gary
Hershorn
Many FOIA lawsuits against federal agencies are filed in Washington
rather than New York.
But in August 2013, the federal appeals court in Washington said
Congress did not intend to authorize FOIA requesters to obtain
records "indirectly" from the Secret Service that they could not
obtain directly from the President.
That decision involved a request by the conservative group Judicial
Watch for records of all White House visitors over seven months.
It was written by Chief Judge Merrick Garland, whose Supreme Court
nomination by Obama was never acted upon by Congress.
Federal judges in Manhattan can use Garland's opinion for guidance,
but need not follow it.
The case is Doyle et al v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 17-02542.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Richard
Chang)
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