Watchdog group will keep fighting in court for Mar-a-Lago visitor logs
A nonprofit watchdog group says it will fight for the guest list from President Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in court, after the federal government only turned over 22 names.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) on Friday said it will be "fighting this in court," after the Secret Service disclosed only a handful of names of people who have visited the president's so-called "southern White House" in Florida, despite an extension on a federal judge's order that the Secret Service divulge the names. That July ruling was a part of an ongoing lawsuit CREW brought against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this year. The Secret Service was supposed to hand over visitor logs, which CREW intended to publish, to CREW, the National Security Archive and the Knight First Amendment Institute by noon on Friday. The original deadline was Sept. 8.
The government disclosed only the names of a few individuals -- all of them from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the president's Palm Beach golf resort in February.
"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," CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder 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. This was spitting in the eye of transparency. We will be fighting this in court."
Mr. Trump's private clubs — Mar-a-Lago in particular — have drawn scrutiny from government watchdogs, who contend that the use of a private facility only a wealthy few can afford to access raises serious transparency concerns. At Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump can meet with business leaders and foreign officials, without any access to the public or reporters. The White House isn't disclosing any visitor logs either, leaving it up to outside groups to attempt to track visitors to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
