Trump has been keeping his visitor logs secret since he took office in January.
This past Monday, CREW filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to disclose records from the White House and Trump's residences in Florida and NY.
The Trump administration will keep secret the records of those who visit the White House, ending a practice started under the Obama administration of partially releasing visitor logs, a White House official said Friday.
"From dismissing decades of tradition by declining to release his tax returns to refusing to place his assets in a blind trust, President Trump seems to be going out of his way to fan distrust and doubt about the way his White House works", said Meredith McGehee, the policy chief at Issue One, a group that wants to reduce the influence of money in politics.
It's worth noting that during Obama's presidency, Trump questioned his transparency and once wondered whether Obama might be "hiding something" by not releasing records.
The Trump administration said it would release information under far more limited circumstances: when Freedom of Information Act requests are filed for those visiting offices of the White House characterised under the law as separate agencies, such as the Office of Management and Budget.
Under Obama, visitor logs were released every 90-120 days.
Islamic State says no fighter killed by mother of all bombs
A general view of Achin district, in Jalalabad , after USA forces dropped Thursday the bomb, Afghanistan, Friday, April 14, 2017 . The attack was aimed to curb the rising threat of ISIS-K in Afghanistan, according to the US Central Command (USCENTCOM).
"Given the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, the White House Office will disclose Secret Service logs as outlined under the Freedom of Information Act, a position the Obama White House successfully defended in federal court", Dubke added.
The decision to withhold the information on White House visitors comes after open-government groups sued the administration over the logs.
Senior White House officials cited privacy and national security concerns for the decision, which they say is in line with what previous administrations have done - except for President Barack Obama's. Records were previously posted online on a monthly basis three or four months after an individual visited the White House.
Trump entered office pledging to "drain the swamp" and combat corruption in the nation's Capitol.
At his inauguration speech in January, Trump told Americans, "We are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people". The Obama administration eventual released almost 6 million visitor records. As a result, Obama's team frequently redacted names from the list of visitors that were released to the public, including celebrities and donors who were sighted on the White House grounds.
"It looks like we'll see them in court", Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said.
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