At the end of March Democrats introduced their Mar-a-Lago Act, or Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness. This piece of legislation was aimed directly at Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest by requiring the release of visitor logs to the public wherever Trump holds court, though it is named after Trump’s self-styled “Winter White House.â€
With the White House refusal to release those visitor logs have come renewed calls to pass the Mar-a-Lago Act. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) were among those who spoke up.
Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) issued a statement calling the White House decision “stunning” and asking what Trump has to hide:
This stunning decision to withhold White House visitor logs raises an obvious question—what is President Trump trying to hide? pic.twitter.com/neBjInTs2S
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
— Tom Udall (@SenatorTomUdall) April 14, 2017
The White House decision is not so much stunning perhaps as sadly predictable.
After all, Trump had already refused to release his tax returns and his medical records. And already at this point he has proven himself guilty of just about everything he has accused President Obama of, including his predecessor’s “lack of transparency”:
Why is @BarackObama spending millions to try and hide his records? He is the least transparent President–ever–and he ran on transparency.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2012
Of course, that was then and this is now, and Donald Trump is the least transparent president – EVER – and he ran on transparency. One is left to suspect that Evan McMullin was speaking sarcastically when he tweeted “A plot twist you never saw coming.”
The ACLU called the refusal to release visitor logs “simply the latest in a series of efforts by President Trump to avoid public accountability.”
And if the conservative Judicial Watch isn’t going to endorse the Mar-a-Lago Act anytime soon, they did release a statement saying “this new secrecy policy undermines the rule of law and suggests this White House doesn’t want to be accountable to the American people.”
As journalist and columnist E.J. Dionne remarked,
We can't see #Trump's taxes. We can't know who's visiting him. What would the GOP do if this were #Clinton? We know.https://t.co/mwdVwtwt8c
— EJ Dionne (@EJDionne) April 14, 2017
No, that doesn’t take much imagination at all.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
