Suit demands visitor logs for parts of White House

By Josh Gerstein, Politico, Aug. 17, 2017

A new lawsuit is demanding public access visitor logs for several agencies located in the White House complex and contends that the Secret Service is illegally turning those records over to White House officials not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The suit does not seek information on visitors to the core offices of the White House, which includes senior advisers to President Donald Trump who work in the West Wing as well as several administrative offices serving the president's staff. A series of court rulings have held that those visitor logs are presidential records not covered by FOIA, but accessible through presidential libraries years after a president leaves office.

Instead, the case filed Thursday by public interest group Public Citizen seeks records of visitors to four agencies housed in the White House complex but with independent legal duties: the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Council on Environmental Quality.

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