No, You Can't Know Who's Visiting The White House. Ivan And Natasha Need Their Privacy.

Donald Trump just hates everything Barack Obama ever did as president, and so it's vital that he reverse everything Obama did, whether it makes sense or whether Trump voters wanted it or not. That would explain stuff like letting coal companies dump mining waste in streams -- was anyone asking for that other than coal companies? If Obama did it, it was bad. Which might be all you need to understand why Team Trump has decided it won't release White House visitor logs. Barack Obama's administration released over six million records of visitors to the White House, so it only stands to reason Trump would do the opposite. Besides, since when is it anyone's business who's coming to the White House to see the president? He's an important man with better things to do than tell you who he's met with.

White House communications director Michael Dubke said the decision to reverse the Obama-era policy was due to “the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.” Instead, the Trump Administration is relying on a federal court ruling that most of the logs are “presidential records” and are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

Three White House officials said they expect criticism of the new policy, but believe it is necessary to preserve the ability of the president to seek advice from whomever he wants, “with some discretion.” They requested anonymity to discuss the policy before a formal announcement

None of your business. "Transparency" was such a weak, Obama-era concept, anyway. If people found out who Donald Trump is inviting to the White House (not to mention Trump Tower or Mar-a-Lago), they might reveal his secret plan to defeat ISIS, once he has one. The visitor logs will be kept secret until five years after Trump leaves office, after which they can be requested via a Freedom of Information Act request.

There's nothing sneaky or uunderhanded about this, after all, say the Trumpers, since Obama also went to court to prevent release of White House logs, although after negative publicity, the Obama administration did begin releasing them. So it's exactly the same thing, except for the outcome. And even then, Obama's staff did sometimes redact names of visitors, "leaving off celebrity sightings and meetings with top donors. It also maintained the right to leave off those brought in for sensitive meetings, like interviews for federal judicial nominations." So the Trump policy is exactly the same, except that they'll release no records at all. Why are you liberals so hellbent on a double standard?

After the Obama administration began releasing partial logs, the rightwing loonies at Judicial Watch sued to get all White house visitor info released, arguing that since the documents were compiled by the Secret Service, they weren't really presidential records, and so they had to get the information to learn whether Obama was secretly having the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda over for tea.

In addition to scotching the release of visitor logs, the Trump administration has also shut down Open.gov, the website where the Obama team posted the visitor logs as well as other information like staff salaries and financial disclosures. It's already gone, but the sources said that the information -- other than the visitor logs -- will eventually be included on Whitehouse.gov. Eliminating the contract for the transparency website will save a whopping $70,000, almost enough for a coat of paint on the Mother of All Bombs, we bet.

In a doomed but at least cutely named bid to force transparency on the TrumPeople, House Democrats last month introduced the "Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act," or MAR-A-LAGO Act, which would require presidents to disclose within 90 days the identities of all visitors to places where the president "regularly conducts official business.”" Don't hold your breath waiting for Republicans to jump on board.

In keeping with the principle that for every Trump action there is an equal and opposite Trump Tweet from the past we present this classic from 2012:

It's not hypocrisy, though, since Trump never promised to be transparent, or if he did, he was "joking." As we recall, this was originally another of Trump's gripes that Obama is an enigma because he never released his college records, which would presumably have shown he got an A in "Destroying America the Saul Alinsky Way." Oh, and of course Donald Trump declined to release his own college records, but only because no one would be interested in that old stuff.

We're increasingly convinced there's LITERALLY a contradictory tweet by Trump from every situation. If Yr Wonkette ever runs the headline "Donald Trump Goes Berserk, Drop-Kicks Cat Into Tree," you can bet it'll be accompanied by a 2011 Tweet complaining, "What's Muslim Obama going to do next, kick cats into trees?"

It'll happen. Believe me.

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[ Time ]