Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump visitor logs to be released
Biden allows their turnover to panel investigating D.C. riot
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is ordering the release of Trump’s White House visitor logs to the House committee investigating the riot of Jan. 6, 2021.
The committee has sought data from the National Archives, including presidential records that Trump had fought to keep private. The records being released to Congress are visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were allowed to enter the White House on the day of the insurrection.
In a letter sent Monday to the National Archives, White House counsel Dana Remus said Biden had considered Trump’s claim that because he was president at the time of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the records should remain private, but decided that it was “not in the best interest of the United States” to do so.
She also noted that as a matter of policy, the Biden administration “voluntarily discloses such visitor logs on a monthly basis,” as did the Obama administration, and that the majority of the entries over which Trump asserted the claim would be publicly released under the current policy.
A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision.
The Presidential Records Act mandates that records made by a sitting president and his staff be preserved in the National Archives, and an outgoing president is responsible for turning over documents to the agency when leaving office. Trump tried but failed to withhold White House documents from the House committee in a dispute that was decided by the Supreme Court.
Biden has waived executive privilege for other information requested by the committee, which is going through the material and obtaining documents and testimony from witnesses.
The committee is focused on Trump’s actions from Jan. 6, when he waited hours to tell his supporters to stop the violence and leave the Capitol. Investigators are also interested in the organization and financing of a Washington rally the morning of the riot, when Trump told supporters to “fight like hell.”
Investigators also are seeking communications between the National Archives and Trump’s aides about 15 boxes of records that the agency recovered from Trump at his Florida resort and are trying to learn what they contained.