Not all efforts to bring to light a few secrets require hacking into servers, and not all transparency organizations are busy coordinating between Trump and Putin. Ever since Donald Trump moved in, the formerly public logs of visitors to the White House have been kept under lock and key. But transparency group Property of the People has sued to get the logs as part of their Operation 45—an effort to gain some insight into the highly secretive Team Trump.
The first results of that effort are now available through ProPublica. The records cover a span from Trump’s first day in office up until early September, but the more than 8,000 visits covered in the logs would be more helpful, if they didn’t include 2,169 redactions—a quarter of all visitors to the White House are still unknown. Also, these results only cover five departments, not including direct visitors to the Oval Office. Not much of real import is obvious. Don’t expect to find the name of Devin Nunes with the topic of “skulking around the bushes” or any surprise drop-ins from the Kremlin.
That said, some of the redactions aren’t all that redacted. Take for instance this February 6 meeting at the underpopulated Office of Science and Technology.
Visitor |
Topic |
REDACTED meeting with Ted Wackler |
Aaron Miles and Ted Chat |
Very sneaky. But not very ominous, as the topic was likely food aid and efforts to establish food security in at-risk regions (Miles’ area of expertise).
In addition to rubbing out many names, on dozens of occasions the only thing listed under “visitor” is “not filled out.” Which sort of brings into question the whole idea of having a visitors log. The Council of Environmental Quality apparently embraced that concept fully, as their log lists no visitors at all. The Trade Representative’s office is littered with meetings with “redacted” on the enlightening topic of “work.”
Overall, the results are … results. But with more than a quarter of the records missing, only a few departments represented, and much of what is present intentionally made worthless … it’s almost as if this White House feels it doesn’t have to answer to the public.
It will take some googling of names and considerable follow up to see if there’s anything in the released records worth noticing.