President Donald Trump has worked hard to earn the title of the laziest president in office. Since taking over the reins from President Barack Obama (and black America’s forever president), Trump has spent some 25 days of his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., which his dumbass staff has named the “Winter White House.”
Now the Trump administration is refusing to share the names of people who visited Trump while he was staying at his home away from home. According to USA Today, the Department of Justice lawyers are planning to argue that Secret Service records of the president’s visits while he was at the private resort are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act and therefore do not have to be released.
The only names that this bogus administration has released have been the “22 Japanese officials who accompanied Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the club in February,” USA Today reports.
Which raises a question: What does the president have to hide? It’s safe to assume everything, since he and Russian President Vladimir Putin matched on Tinder and have been in a complicated relationship since he took office. It’s also safe to say that Melania Trump has no idea how intimate his relationship is with Putin, and she’s probably completely unaware that the couple own a cat together that they named “Freckles” that lives at Mar-a-Lago.
“Trump’s secrecy rides again,” Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, told USA Today.
This was the reason that many argued Trump needed to relinquish ownership of his real estate, branding and hotel chains while in office, to which Trump has refused. Now he’s in the most prominent public seat holding private off-campus meetings, and is fighting the courts to release the names of those who have visited him during his time away from the White House.
Here is how USA Today explains Trump’s levels of secrecy:
From the beginning of Trump’s presidency, the White House had sought to keep the records from Mar-a-Lago secret. The Trump administration also ended an Obama-era practice of disclosing Secret Service logs of visitors to the White House, and does not share information about the membership of the president’s private clubs or his interactions with golf partners and others at Trump-owned properties.
A recent USA TODAY investigation found that dozens of lobbyists, contractors and others seeking to influence the government are members of Trump’s golf clubs. The president’s continued ownership of these clubs gives wealthy interests the chance to have close contact with the president in return for initiation fees and annual dues that enrich him personally.
In February, Trump drew attention — and denunciations from some Democrats — for huddling with his aides and Abe on an open-air patio at the club as they rushed to respond to a North Korean missile launch. Club members dining nearby posted pictures of the scene on social media.
Friday’s release offers a picture into the size of the delegation that accompanied Abe and his wife to Mar-a-Lago for the high-profile summit. Other visitors included Japan’s ambassador to the United States Kenichiro Sasae, van drivers, an official photographer and Abe’s butler.
In February, White House officials said Trump would personally pay Abe’s tab at Mar-a-Lago, and other members of the delegation would stay elsewhere.
Trump’s predecessor, President Obama, began releasing White House visitor logs in September 2009 to settle a series of lawsuits. The information included the names of visitors, dates and times they entered the White House compound and names of the people they visited.
Obama released about 6 million records of White House visitors by the time he left office. In April, Trump Administration officials announced he would end the policy, partially to save money: $70,000 by 2020.
The whole thing smells rotten, but then again, that could just be the stench from Mar-a-Lago’s nasty-ass kitchen.
Read more at USA Today.