'Spitting in the eye of transparency': Trump administration releases visitor logs from Mar-a-Lago, but it's only a list of 22 Japanese officials
Win McNamee/Getty Images
But all the administration eventually provided was a list of 22 Japanese officials who visited Mar-a-Lago in February with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
"After waiting months for a response to our request for comprehensive visitor logs from the President's multiple visits to Mar-a-Lago and having the government ask for a last-minute extension, today we received 22 names from the Japanese prime minister's visit to Mar-a-Lago and nothing else," Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the organization that sought the records, said in a statement. "The government does not believe that they need to release any further Mar-a-Lago visitor records. We vehemently disagree."
"The government seriously misrepresented their intentions to both us and the court," he continued. "This was spitting in the eye of transparency. We will be fighting this in court."
CREW, the National Security Archive, and the Knight First Amendment Institute were scheduled to receive the Mar-a-Lago visitor logs on Friday as a part of their court battle with the Department of Homeland Security. Those logs were requested for dates spanning from January 20 to March 8. CREW said in a statement that an additional lawsuit to obtain White House visitor logs is still ongoing.
CREW had similarly sued the Obama administration in 2009 for release of the White House logs, which the administration settled by agreeing to regularly release the information. Earlier this year, the White House announced it would keep the visitor logs secret.
Last week, government lawyers told CREW they would not be able to release the Mar-a-Lago visitor logs by the September 8 deadline set in court, and the parties agreed to a one-week extension.
CREW's effort was not the only seeking to obtain the visitor logs, as Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation in March aiming to obtain them.
But one reason the request yielded such limited results was that the logs simply weren't being kept, as Politico reported in March. Former Secret Service officials - the agency maintains such logs for the White House - told Politico in March that the agency doesn't have the time or money to maintain logs at the president's private clubs, adding that doing so is not practice when a president goes to a hotel or other locations away from the White House.
- US buys 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Russia's ally costing on average less than $20,000 each, report says
- 2 states where home prices are falling because there are too many houses and not enough buyers
- A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
- India Inc marks slowest quarterly revenue growth in January-March 2024: Crisil
- Nothing Phone (2a) India-exclusive Blue Edition launched starting at ₹19,999
- SC refuses to plea seeking postponement of CA exams scheduled in May
- 10 exciting weekend getaways from Delhi within 300 km in 2024
- Foreign tourist arrivals in India will cross pre-pandemic level in 2024
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market