The Biden White House said it cannot make the Trump White House’s visitor logs public because it lacks access to the records, which were subject to numerous legal battles and former President Donald Trump sought to keep private.
“We cannot,” press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday, stating that the records fall “under the purview of the National Archives.”
Access to the Trump White House’s visitor logs ended shortly after Trump took office, shielding details of the White House’s day-to-day business from public view. At the time, the White House framed the matter as one of national security.
Withholding the logs limits public knowledge of who visits the complex, shielding from view activists, lobbyists, or political donors who may be influencing the president or his advisers.
Psaki said the Biden administration plans to release the logs quarterly, “just as the Obama-Biden administration did.”
The Obama administration voluntarily released most records after initially refusing, with exceptions for the identities of the then-president’s daughters’ friends or visitors attending national security or intelligence meetings.
While the White House is not subject to public disclosure through the Freedom of Information Act, transparency groups criticized Trump for his policy and sued his administration for access.
A decision last year by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Trump policy and ruled to keep the names of visitors hidden for a minimum of five years from his last day in office.
