Sen. Wyden To Trump: Share Visitor Logs To White House And Mar-A-Lago

Charging that "the cloak of secrecy seems to be falling over more and more parts of your Administration," Sen. Ron Wyden and seven of his Congressional colleagues asked President Trump and the Secret Service to release visitor logs to the White House and Mar-a-Lago.

Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and others want Trump and the Secret Service to continue a policy put in place under the Obama administration.

HAVE PATCH EMAIL YOU ALL THE LATEST NEWS

The letters were also signed by Democrat Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed, of Rhode Island; Tom Carper, of Delaware; Tom Udall, of New Mexico; Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York; Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

"It would be a significant setback to efforts to give the public insight into who influences the White House if this policy were to be discontinued or limited," they wrote.

"Indeed, given the unique aspects of how President Trump has decided to conduct official business, we believe he needs to do even more just to meet the benchmark of transparency set by President Obama."

Wyden says that given the frequency of Trump's visits to Mar-a-Lago, the Secret Service should release those visitor logs as well as those for Trump Tower and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

"If you decide to stop or weaken this policy, it will be seen as yet another instance of you retreating from your campaign commitments to 'drain the swamp,'" they wrote Trump.

Wyden and the others state that the president and his administration have ignored several letters from members of Congress asking for information ranging from a membership list for Mar-a-Lago to details about the role that billionaire Carl Ichan played in helping cut regulations

Events at Mar-a-Lago "do not inspire confidence that you take transparency or security during these visits seriously."

They ask that Trump answer the following questions by March 15.

• Have you decided to continue the policy of releasing White House visitor logs to the public? If so, are you making any changes to that policy and why?
• Will you be extending the Workers and Visitors Entry System (WAVES) and Access Control Records (ACR), which form the basis form visitor disclosures, to other locations that you visit regularly and to which the public has access, like Mar-a-Lago?

Meanwhile, they would like the Secret Service to answer these questions:

• What determination, if any, has been made to continue making White House visitor logs from the Workers and Visitors Entry System (WAVES) and the Access Control Records system (ACR) available to the public?
• If there is a plan to continue to make these records available, will the policy differ from President Obama’s? If so, how and why?
• Are the WAVES and the ACR systems being used for Mar-a-Lago? If not, what other steps are being taken to conduct background checks people who will be present during President Trump’s trips to Mar-a-Lago?
• Is the Secret Service considering extending these systems, or any other security screenings, for Trump Tower, Bedminster, or other Trump properties at which the President may spend time conducting official businesses? If not, why not?
• If security screening systems are being put in place outside the White House, who will be responsible for collecting and maintaining these records, what information will be collected, and where and in what format it will be stored? Will information from those systems be made available to the public? If so, will that information be disclosed under the same conditions as White House visitor logs in the Obama Administration?

Photo: Ron Wyden's office