‘ We’ve tried to do what we can’

Spokesman Sean Spicer commented, at Monday’s news briefing, on the White House decision not to release visitor logs publicly:

We’re following the same policy that every administration from the beginning of time has used with respect to ( White House) visitor logs. We will comply with both the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act as stated by law. ...

So it’s the same policy that every administration had up until the Obama administration, and, frankly, the faux attempt that the Obama administration put out, where they would scrub what they didn’t want put out, didn’t serve anyone well.

The president wants to make sure that people can come in the same way that they can go into a member of Congress’ office. ...

I think that we recognize that there’s a privacy aspect to allowing citizens to come express their views. And that’s why we maintain the same policy that every other administration did coming up here prior to the last one. And the last one, frankly, was a faux level of doing that. ... It’s not really being transparent when you scrub out the names of the people that you don’t want anyone to know were here. ...

I think that we’ve taken several steps to allow people access to this White House in terms of — in particular the press. We hold regular pool sprays. We bring people in. We release participant lists. We give press the opportunity to come into the room, see everybody who’s there. You’re part of the discussion. ...

I think we’ve been fairly consistent with reading out who he’s meeting with and what he’s done, providing the pool access to his whereabouts and what he’s doing. I think we generally do. Obviously, the president has time to spend with family and he makes phone calls. We generally provide readouts of those phone calls with foreign leaders, whether he’s here or in Florida.

So I think we’ve done a fairly good job of making sure that people know who he’s meeting with, who he’s speaking to, and when appropriate, the contents of those calls. ...

So I get that there’s always going to be this back- and- forth, you guys ( the news media) are going to always want more. And I think that we’ve tried to do what we can to get you that information.