(JustPatriots.com)- A Freedom of Information Act request has been denied by the US Secret Service, which claims that it has “no records” of visits to Vice President Biden’s two Delaware homes.
Even though Biden spent approximately a quarter of his first year in the White House at his homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, nothing is known about who visited for official meetings or less formal lobbying efforts—such as by members of his family and their colleagues.
Hunter Biden, the first son of former Vice President Joe Biden, is being investigated for alleged tax evasion and unregistered foreign lobbying. The younger Biden worked with his uncle Jim Biden on a few international initiatives.
Records and images from a computer formerly owned by Hunter Biden show that his father met with Chinese, Mexican, Russian and Ukrainian business acquaintances at the vice president’s mansion in Washington, D.C.
When Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pushed Joe Manchin (D-WV) for approval of Biden’s Build Back Better Act social spending package on Oct. 24, Biden was at one of his Delaware homes for 99 days during his first year in office.
The president often discusses how his visitors affect his policy decisions.
Vice President Joe Biden recalled sitting in his kitchen with his wife, her sister, and a dear friend named Mary Ann in a sunroom off the kitchen. “Are you aware that a pound of hamburger beef costs almost $5?” his sister-in-law asked.
Perhaps she shaped policy decisions.
With varying degrees of success, transparency organizations have sought to get presidential visitor records but have been thwarted by federal appeals courts headquartered in Washington and New York.
To get restricted data about a Japanese delegation’s visit to former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued and won, although the records were vague.
Secret Service spokeswoman Jordan Libowitz stated that they gained access to the data but never received anything because the Trump Organization screened the president’s meetings.
Secret Service spokeswoman Jordan Libowitz said that even though Biden spends the weekend at his property in Delaware, he has not seen any reports that there is a lot of official work and outside meetings being done.
It’s a “shell game,” according to Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, a conservative watchdog organization that has previously sued the Secret Service for access to presidential visitor data.
Fitton said that It’s evident that the Secret Service knows and monitors who visits President Biden at his properties in Delaware. They are playing a shell game with the public to keep that information secret.
Thanks to a 2013 federal appeals court order issued by now-Attorney General Merrick Garland, presidents may pick and choose what they publish via visitor records.
President Trump’s constitutional right to private communications implies that Secret Service visitation logs don’t fall under the FOIA’s definition of “agency documents,” even though they’re clearly “agency records” under FOIA.
If there were any national security or privacy issues, Judicial Watch argued, they could be addressed with specific FOIA redactions, which the Obama administration agreed to. For legal reasons, the Obama administration started sharing detailed visitor data in 2009 but suppressed others, leading to charges of false openness.
The Trump administration used the Garland case to eliminate the need for logs to be disclosed. WH communications director Michael Dubke cited “the significant national security threats and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors yearly” as a factor in the decision.
The Biden White House rereleased visitors’ logs in May of last year. The Biden administration praised itself for doing so, saying that the records give the public a look into the visitors entering and exiting the White House campus for appointments, tours, and official business—making good on President Biden’s commitment to restore integrity, transparency, and trust in government.”
