The White House won't disclose its visitor logs

(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

published 14 April 2017

The White House announced Friday that it will not make its visitor logs public, Time reports. The decision represents a marked break between the Trump administration and its predecessor, as former President Barack Obama's White House voluntarily released nearly 6 million visitor logs — though the Obama logs did routinely omit visitors the White House deemed vaguely as "personal."

The Trump administration is using a 2013 federal court ruling to deem the visitor logs "presidential records" and thus shield them from the Freedom of Information Act. White House communications director Michael Dubke cited personal security as the reason for the privacy, saying it was in consideration of "the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually."