Trump and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe at Mar-a-Lago last February. Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Image
The Department of Homeland Security will finally release Mar-a-Lago's visitor logs, thanks to a recent lawsuit from government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the Hill reports.The lawsuit is one of three that CREW, the National Security Archive, and the Knight First Amendment Institute filed against DHS for visitor logs to the White House, Trump Tower, and Trump's "Winter White House." In response to that ongoing suit, a federal judge ruled on Friday that the Secret Service would have to release all "responsive records of presidential visitors at Mar-a-Lago," according to NBC News.Back in 2009, CREW filed similar lawsuits against the Obama administration, which resulted in the release of all White House visitor logs for the remainder of Obama's presidency. Trump decided to walk back on that policy in April—so CREW is fighting to get them public once again, along with Trump's other gilded lairs, where he's talked openly about national security matters and may or may not have played a few rounds of golf."The public deserves to know who is coming to meet with the president and his staff," CREW executive director Noah Bookbinder said in a press release. "We are glad that as a result of this case, this information will become public for meetings at his his personal residences—but it needs to be public for meetings at the White House as well."According to CREW, DHS claims to not keep visitor logs tracking the bizarre cast of characters who stroll in and out of Trump Tower, and the lawsuit to unveil the White House records is still pending, but CREW is set to receive the Mar-a-Lago logs by September 8 at the latest. When it does, the organization said it would make the logs public.
Advertisement
Trump's private golf club in Palm Beach, Florida, is home to nearly 500 paying members, according to ABC News. It's also become a popular spot for the president to take foreign dignitaries and Cabinet members, as well as make the occasional appearance during events and weddings. Democrats in Congress have been fiending for the logs since March, when they introduced a bill to get ahold of them called the "Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act," or MAR-A-LAGO Act.