Judge Keeps White House Logs Secret

By Cernig

Here's a quick update to the story of those White House visitor logs. I wrote a while back that Judge Lamberth had decided that the logs were not secret, couldn't be destroyed without permission from the national Archives and were subject to FOI requests. At the time I said we could do with more judges like Lamberth and some of that kind of spine in Congress.

Well, he buckled last Friday.

A federal judge agreed Friday to let the Bush administration keep secret the lists of visitors to the White House until an appeals court decides whether the documents are public records.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth granted the White House request five days after ordering the Secret Service to turn over the records to a liberal watchdog group that sought them under the Freedom of Information Act.

The logs being sought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington relate to White House visits regarding nine conservative religious commentators, including James Dobson, Gary Bauer and the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Pity.