Watchdogs Sue Trump Admin For Visitor Logs At WH, Trump Tower, Mar-A-Lago

The South Lawn of the White House in Washington is seen on Monday, Jan. 26, 2015. A device, possibly an unmanned aerial drone, was found on the White House grounds during the middle of the night while President Barac... The South Lawn of the White House in Washington is seen on Monday, Jan. 26, 2015. A device, possibly an unmanned aerial drone, was found on the White House grounds during the middle of the night while President Barack Obama and first lady were in India. It was unclear whether their daughters, Sasha and Malia, were at home at the time of the incident with their grandmother, Marian Robinson. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) MORE LESS
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Watchdog groups on Monday filed a lawsuit accusing the Department of Homeland Security of violating the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to release records of visitors to the White House, Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago.

National Security Archive researcher Kate Doyle, as well as the archive itself, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed the suit against DHS, which oversees the Secret Service.

The lawsuit seeks “injunctive relief ordering DHS to process and release to plaintiffs immediately the requested records” of visitors to the White House and President Donald Trump’s residences.

In 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the Secret Service is not obligated by FOIA to disclose White House visitor logs upon request.

Plaintiffs filed the new lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, possibly to distance the case from that precedent. While the White House is mostly exempt from FOIA requests, executive agencies such as the Secret Service are not.

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