Trump White House is still holding back visitor information, watchdog group says

Public Citizen, a government watchdog group, sued to compel the Trump administration to release names of at least some visitors to the White House complex, as was done in the Obama era.

The lawsuit contends that the current administration had planned to be less open about visitor logs but was failing to abide by even that lower standard it had announced in April. Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group, alleged in the lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia that the Secret Service has rejected or ignored requests under the public records law for information about visitors to four agencies at the White House complex: 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. Public Citizen harshly criticized the withholding of the visitor information, saying the failure to release them flouted a 2013 appellate court ruling and contradicted President Trump’s vows to “drain the swamp” of corrupting influences of money in politics in Washington.