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The
White House disclosed 400 visits during President Joe Biden’s
first 12 days in office. The White House typically sees hundreds
of visitors each day, but the pandemic has slowed those visits
dramatically, the records show.
“As vaccinations increase and the pandemic response continues to
make progress, we look forward to welcoming many more visitors
onto the White House campus and back into the People’s House,”
the White House said in a statement.
Amid the pandemic, most meetings have been virtual. Biden has
faced criticism for not planning to release the names of people
attending virtual meetings, arguing that previous
administrations did not release phone call and similar
information.
The first batch of names included prominent Cabinet secretaries
like Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, and Pete Buttigieg,
the transportation secretary, along with the members of the
military band who played on Inauguration Day and frequent visits
by the American Sign Language interpreter.
Biden, a Democrat, committed during the transition to making
White House visitor logs public, after Trump, his Republican
predecessor, refused to release the names of people coming and
going from the White House complex.
The Trump administration faced legal challenges to that stance
and reached a settlement in 2018 that allowed the monthly
publication of visitor logs for some executive offices,
including the Office of Management and Budget. But that never
extended to the entirety of the White House.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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