Visitor logs subject of suit, WH review

WASHINGTON, June 16 (UPI) -- The White House visitor logs policy is under review after a watchdog group sued for access so it could track U.S. coal executives' visits, the White House said.

"(Visitor) logs have been involved in some litigation dating back to sometime in 2006," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. "The White House is reviewing that policy based on some of that litigation."

Gibbs said the White House counsel's office "and other people" would handle the review of undetermined length.

Earlier Tuesday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued the Obama administration, seeking release of visitor records of coal company executives to the White House, The Washington Post reported.

"The Obama administration has now taken exactly the same position as the Bush administration, telling us the visitor logs are presidential records," CREW legal counsel Anne Weismann said. "I don't see how you can keep people from knowing who visits the White House and adhere to a policy of openness and transparency. The discrepancy between the rhetoric and the policy is especially great."

When asked whether there should be a right to conduct secret meetings occasionally at the White House, Gibbs said, "I think there are obviously occasions in which the president is going to meet privately with advisers on topics that are of great national importance, yes."

"I think the president underscored his commitment to transparency on his first full day in office. This is not a contest between this administration or that administration or any administration," Gibbs said, referring to similar suits to open visitor logs during the George W. Bush administration. "It's to uphold the principle of open government."