Trump Declines to Release List of His Visitors at Mar-a-Lago
The Trump administration on Friday escalated a battle with government ethics groups by declining, even in the face of a federal court order, to release the identities of individuals visiting with President Trump at his family’s Mar-a-Lago resort during the days he has spent at the private club in Palm Beach, Fla., this year.
.. Federal law exempts the White House from the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, which requires public disclosure of government documents. But CREW and its partners argued that because the presidential visitor records are typically maintained by the Secret Service — which is part of the Department of Homeland Security — they should not be exempt from public release.
.. “The government believes that presidential schedule information is not subject to FOIA.”
.. The Obama administration had faced a similar lawsuit before it decided in late 2009 to start to make visitor logs public, a practice that stopped with Mr. Trump’s arrival.