April 14, 2017

Trump Policy on Visitor Logs Provides Hint to How He Governs

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So much for visitor logs:

The Trump administration announced Friday that it would not follow former president Barack Obama’s policy of voluntarily disclosing the names of most visitors to the White House complex….White House communications director Mike Dubke said Friday that [Trump] has taken several steps to ensure the government “is both ethical and accessible to the American people.” Among those he mentioned were new restrictions on lobbyists and allowing journalists to participate remotely in White House briefings via Skype.

“Given the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, the White House Office will disclose Secret Service logs as outlined under the Freedom of Information Act, a position the Obama White House successfully defended in federal court,” Dubke said in a statement.

One theory about Trump is that the best predictor of his policy views is “whatever Obama did, do the opposite.” Those of you who subscribe to this theory can take a victory lap. The rest of us need to update our priors.

“Grave national security risks.” Yes indeedy.

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