WASHINGTON (AP) – They were hoping for extensive visitor logs from President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Instead, government watchdog groups got a list of 22 Japanese officials who had joined their country’s prime minister at the property during a February trip.
It’s the latest setback for advocates trying to make public information on who has access to the president.
The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the National Security Archive and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University had sued the administration for access to the logs, arguing that the public had a right to know who interacted with the president at the private property that Trump often refers to as “the winter White House.” Trump made seven trips to Mar-a-Lago earlier this year.
The Department of Homeland Security agreed this summer to hand over records related to the property’s visitors in September. Homeland Security oversees the Secret Service, the agency charged with protecting the president.