White House defends changes in public disclosure policies
Top democrat decries ‘major step backward’ for presidential transparency
White House officials on Monday mustered a sweeping defence of their less-is-more public disclosure practices, arguing that releasing information on a wide array of topics would strike a blow against personal privacy and impede President Donald Trump’s ability to govern.
This stance, critics say, represents a shift from Trump’s own drain-the-swamp campaign message and his promise to decrease the influence of lobbyists, special interest groups and big political donors.
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, facing a barrage of questions about the president’s commitment to transparency, repeatedly shut down reporters’ queries — from the identity of Trump’s weekend golf partners to his refusal to release his 2016 tax returns. Spicer said that greater public disclosure was unnecessary, intrusive or even harmful.
Reversal of Obama practice
He defended Trump’s reversal of President Barack Obama’s practice of periodically releasing West Wing visitor logs, and suggested that doing so would discourage outsiders who require anonymity to offer frank advice to the president and his top advisers.
“I think that we recognise that there’s a privacy aspect to allowing citizens to come, express their views,” Spicer told reporters. He added that an earlier practice of exempting national security officials from the logs made Obama’s release of visitor names a “faux” transparency.
“We are going to follow the law the way that every administration has followed up until the last one,” he said.
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, conceded that Obama’s practice was “less than perfect.” But he said Trump’s refusal to release any of the logs represented a “major step backward” for presidential transparency.
“Sometimes I think the president doesn’t understand the line between being a private businessman and serving the public trust, and he thinks he can just run his life the same way he’s done for 50 years,” Cummings said.
“But this is about the public trust. If you want to get rich, don’t get into politics. I know that. If you want privacy, don’t go into politics. He needs to learn that.”
Demonstrations
Spicer spoke after a weekend of demonstrations over Trump’s long-standing refusal to release his tax returns. He said that voters elected the president with full knowledge that he was breaking decades of precedent by refusing to release his taxes. Spicer also repeated the president’s argument that continuing, routine audits of his taxes prevented them from being made public.
“I think the people understand, you know, how successful the president has been and how much he’s paid in taxes,” Spicer said. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly said he would release his taxes once the audits were completed, but since has backed off that pledge.