White House Must Turn Over Records Showing Christian Leader Visits

9 Jan 2009 // The White House lost a court battle Friday in its attempt to keep secret visitor logs containing the identities of fundamentalist Christian leaders who are said to have visited the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s home, a U.S. District Court judge ruled Friday.

Additionally, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth determined that the Secret Service violated the Federal Records Act by illegally deleting computer records dating back to 2001. The Secret Service deleted the records on orders from the White House and did not retain back up copies.

Judge Lamberth also found that Adrienne Thomas, Acting Archivist of the United States, had violated his legal obligation to ask the attorney general to undertake legal action to recover the deleted records. Lamberth ordered Thomas to request that the attorney general initiate legal action to recover the records and provide Congress a report of the progress.

The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued the Department of Homeland Security in 2006 for access to the records after the Secret Service—on orders from Cheney—refused to process CREW’s Freedom of Information Act request. The Secret Service was formerly operated by the Treasury Department. It became part of the Homeland Security Department in March 2003. The White House assumed control of the visitor logs when CREW and other watchdog groups and the media sought access to the files.

Friday’s order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth said the Secret Service must process CREW’s FOIA request and turn over the visitor logs.

"CREW’s victory today reaffirms the public’s right to know what the government is doing,” said Anne Weismann, CREW’s chief counsel. “We are pleased that the judicial branch has ripped the cloak of secrecy away from the White House and we hope the incoming administration takes heed of the court’s decision and ensures Secret Service records are available to the public.”

The nine fundamentalist Christian leaders allegedly identified in the Secret Service visitor logs are Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, Gary L. Bauer, of American Values, Wendy Wright, of Concerned Women for America, Louis P. Sheldon and Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition, Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage and the Free Congress Foundation, Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Concil, Donald Wildmon, of the American Family Association, and Jerry Falwell.

The Christian leaders provided the Bush administration with advice on policies such as stem cell research, abortion, and science.

Lamberth had initially ruled in favor of CREW in December 2006 when the organization sued two month earlier for access to the visitor records. But the Bush administration appealed the decision last year arguing that a Supreme Court ruling issued in 2004 “warning that courts should hesitate before requiring the President or Vice President to “bear the burden” of “asserting specific claims of privilege and making . . . particular objections.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected the Bush administration’s claims that Secret Service visitor logs are the property of President George W. Bush and are not subject to FOIA requests. The panel of three appeals court judges essentially upheld Lamberth’s decision who ruled that the visitor logs were public documents subject to the FOIA.

Moreover, the appeals court rejected the White House’s argument that requiring the government to process the request and invoke exemptions would place a constitutionally impermissible burden on the president or vice president. The court determined that CREW’s request is “narrowly drawn” and that requiring the administration to rely on the FOIA’s exemptions to protect claims of executive privilege “is a routine occurrence, not a uniquely intrusive burden.”