The Secret Service is refusing to turn over the list of individuals who accessed the White House where the cocaine was found:
The @SecretService refuses to hand over the "index" of persons who may have accessed the area of the White House where cocaine was found. https://t.co/qUczxOB9lX
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 28, 2023
The Biden admin is claiming the records request is subject to the Presidential Records Act and not the Freedom of Information Act because it concerns those accessing the Office of the President
Here’s more via the Daily Signal:
The Secret Service has refused to turn over the list of individuals who may have accessed the area of the White House where authorities discovered cocaine over the Fourth of July weekend, saying that the record of such a list does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act. This suggests that the Secret Service never created such a list in the first place.
“As your request seeks records reflecting visitors or related information concerning the Office of the President, please be advised that these records are not Secret Service agency records subject to the FOIA,” Kevin Tyrrell, a Freedom of Information Act officer at the Department of Homeland Security, wrote in a letter obtained by The Daily Signal. “Rather, these records are governed by the Presidential Records Act, and remain under the exclusive legal custody and control of the White House.”
Steve Bradbury, a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation who served as the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Transportation from 2017 to 2021 and led the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department from 2005 to 2009, broke down the legal distinction between an agency record and a presidential record.
The distinction “usually turns on who generates the record and whose business the record reflects,” Bradbury told The Daily Signal. “If it’s an agency record, it’s subject to FOIA. If it’s a White House record, it’s covered by the Presidential Records Act.”
Bradbury said the pertinent question should be whether the Secret Service created its own new record using information from the White House visitor and staff logs.
If the White House produced a list of all the people who visited, but “the Secret Service took that information and created a new document on its systems, which was its own list of suspects that it generated, that new document should” fall under the scope of the Freedom of Information Act, he said.
If the Secret Service did not create a new document, that may suggest that the agency did not take the investigation seriously.
You can’t tell me the Secret Service doesn’t have the list of people who accessed the area where the cocaine was found. That would be the height of irresponsibility, especially since they did an entire investigation. They know exactly who accessed the area and who left the cocaine but refuse to reveal it to the public to protect someone in the White House.