Judge: White House Visitor Logs Are Public
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

White House visitor logs are public documents, a federal judge ruled yesterday, rejecting a legal strategy that the Bush administration had hoped would let them keep their guests a secret. The ruling is a blow to the White House, which has fought the release of records showing visits by prominent religious conservatives. Visitor records are created by the Secret Service, which is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. But the Bush administration has ordered the data turned over to the White House, where they are treated as presidential records outside the scope of the public records law.