Secret Service Denies Access to Joe Biden's Visitor Logs

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The U.S. Secret Service recently denied Judicial Watch’s request under federal law for visitor logs for the Office of Vice President Joe Biden. In April, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records of visits made to the Vice President’s Washington D.C. Office/Residence and of visits to his residence in Wilmington, Delaware. The Secret Service responded that the requested records are not accessible under FOIA. Earlier this year, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Secret Service, after it denied access to the White House visitor logs
Judicial Watch specifically asked the Secret Service for access to:

1.) All official visitor logs and/or other records concerning visits made to the Vice President’s Residence and Office located on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory from January 20, 2009 to the present.

2.) All official visitor logs and/or other records concerning visits made to Vice President Joe Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware from January 20, 2009 to the present.

The Secret Service responded to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request with the statement that, “It is the government’s position that the categories of records that you requested are not agency records subject to the FOIA.”  The response went on to claim that certain portions of the records also would be exempt from disclosure as personnel or medical files, the disclosure of which would be an “unwarranted invasion of privacy.”
The Secret Service’s assertion that visitor logs of the Vice President’s Residence/Office are not agency records subject to FOIA has been rejected in federal court. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia explicitly held that such logs are records in 2007’s Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Security, finding:

[T]he Court concludes that these visitor records at the White House Complex and Vice-President’s Residence are created (or obtained) and controlled by the Secret Service and are therefore ‘agency records’ under our circuit’s case law. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Security, 527 F. Supp.2d 76, 89 (D.D.C. 2007) (emphasis added)