The Trump Administration will not disclose logs of those who visit the White House complex, breaking with his predecessor, the White House announced Friday. 
 
 The decision, after nearly three months of speculation about the fate of the records, marks a dramatic shift from the Obama Administration’s voluntary disclosure of more than 6 million records during his presidency. The U.S. Secret Service maintains the logs, formally known as the Workers and Visitors Entry System, for the purpose of determining who can access to the 18-acre complex. 
 
 White House communications director Michael Dubke said the decision to reverse the Obama-era policy was due to “the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.” Instead, the Trump Administration is relying on a federal court ruling that most of the logs are “presidential records” and are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. 
 
 Three White House officials said they expect criticism of the new policy, but believe it is necessary to preserve the ability of the president to seek advice from whomever he wants, “with some discretion.” They requested anonymity to discuss the policy before a formal announcement. 
 
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 Under the Trump Administration’s directive, logs of those entering the White House complex will be kept secret until at least five years after Trump leaves office—at which point they will first be eligible to be requested by the public, press and scholars. The White House did not say who would maintain custody of the records during his time in office. 
 
 Trump officials are quick to point out that the Obama Administration fought in federal court to preserve the right to redact and withhold records, successfully appealing a lower court ruling requiring their release to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. But seeking to live up to Obama’s promise to run “the most transparent administration in history,” his Administration voluntarily disclosed the logs. 
 
 But those logs were incomplete—often obviously so. The Obama-era process allowed the White House Counsel’s office to unilaterally redact records of those visiting the complex for any reason. The Obama Administration, for instance, took a wide-ranging view of what were considered personal events hosted by the Obamas, leaving off celebrity sightings and meetings with top donors. It also maintained the right to leave off those brought in for sensitive meetings, like interviews for federal judicial nominations. Obama-era officials took other steps to circumvent the logs, scheduling meetings with lobbyists and others at nearby coffee shops. 
 
 Trump White House officials are now arguing that the Obama records presented an incomplete picture of who interacted with the Administration. “It did create more of a façade of transparency rather than complete transparency,” said one White House official. 
 
 “The ability to scrub them was sort of institutionalized,” another official said, noting that the clearance form for visitors to the complex includes a check box allowing requesters to flag a record for later shielding it from public release. 
 
 The 2013 opinion was in a case filed by watchdog groups, including the conservative Freedom Watch, which argued that the WAVES records could be released since they were created and maintained by the Secret Service — and thus not exempt from FOIA. Earlier this month, liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed suit in the Southern District of New York against the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Secret Service, for access to the logs on the same grounds. White House officials said they expect that court to reach the same conclusion as the D.C. circuit, but suggested it would seek to litigate to preserve its ability to keep the records secret if necessary. 
 
 Last month congressional Democrats introduced the “Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act,” or MAR-A-LAGO Act, which would require Trump to disclose visitors at places where he “regularly conducts official business” within 90 days. The Secret Service does not maintain WAVES records, or any logs of those who visit the club owned by the president at Palm Beach. 
 
 Logs for the Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy remain subject to FOIA requests, officials said, but will not be unilaterally disclosed. 
 
 White House officials said the Administration is ending the contract for Open.gov, the Obama-era site that hosted the visitor records along with staff financial disclosures, salaries, and appointments. An official said it would save $70,000 through 2020 and that the removed disclosures, salaries and appointments would be integrated into WhiteHouse.gov in the coming months. 
 
 Write to Zeke J Miller at zeke.miller@time.com. ||||| (CNN) The Trump administration said Friday it will not release logs of White House visitors, breaking with a precedent set by the Obama administration and shrouding Trump's activities in the West Wing in secrecy. 
 
 The decision was made in light of the "grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually," according to White House Communications Director Michael Dubke. 
 
 He said the administration would instead follow a legal precedent based on a 2013 court ruling that determined visitor logs were presidential records and not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. 
 
 The move, first reported by Time magazine, is a break from the previous administration, which established a website where users could search records of people cleared into the White House complex for meetings and events. 
 
 The Obama administration created that service after lawsuits demanding the release of the visitor records. During his tenure, Obama's administration released millions of visitor records, which are still accessible online. The records were not available instantaneously, however, and often took months before they were posted online. 
 
 Former administration officials said the visitor records -- which are created when someone without a permanent credential submits their information to the Secret Service -- were parsed monthly to remove any potentially sensitive meetings from the official record. 
 
 Officials said that sensitive meetings -- including interviews of potential Supreme Court justices and huddles with top national security officials -- were scrubbed from the official records. The Obama administration also maintained that guests at private social gatherings, which the Obamas held occasionally in their private residence, were exempt from having their names listed on the logs. 
 
 The records that were released contained information about who a visitor was meeting within the White House complex, what time they arrived, and how long they remained inside. 
 
 The Trump administration was sued this week by several watchdog groups seeking access to the records, which have not been released since Trump took office, insisting the records are actually the property of the Secret Service, which is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. 
 
 Democrats in Congress have also introduced legislation that would require the Trump administration to maintain and disclose the names of visitors at places aside the White House where he conducts business, including his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. 
 
 On Friday, Dubke defended the White House's decision by citing other areas he said was demonstrating new levels of transparency. 
 
 "By instituting historic restrictions on lobbying to close the revolving door, expanding and elevating ethics within the White House Counsel's office, and opening the White House press briefing room to media outlets that otherwise cannot gain access, the Trump administration has broken new ground in ensuring our government is both ethical and accessible to the American people," Dubke said. 
 
 The Citizens of Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a group that's taken legal action pursuing the records' release, blasted the Trump administration's decision Friday. 
 
 "It's disappointing that the man who promised to 'drain the swamp' just took a massive step away from transparency by refusing the release the White House visitor logs that the American people have grown accustomed to accessing over the last six years and that provide indispensable information about who is seeking to influence the president," said Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of CREW. 
 
 "The Obama administration agreed to release the visitor logs in response to our lawsuits, and despite the Trump administration's worry over 'grave national security risks and concerns,' only positives for the American people came out of them," Bookbinder said. "This week, we sued the Trump administration to make sure they would continue to release the logs. It looks like we'll see them in court." ||||| The decision to withhold the records marks a drastic change from the Obama administration, which posted the visitor logs online. | Getty White House says it won't make visitor logs public 
 
 President Donald Trump’s administration announced Friday that the White House won’t release records of its visitors, raising new concerns from transparency advocates. 
 
 The decision not to voluntarily disclose White House visitor logs is a break from the policy of former President Barack Obama’s administration, even though Trump had called his predecessor the “least transparent president.” 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 White House communications director Michael Dubke framed the decision not to disclose who visits the president as resulting from the “national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.” Time magazine first reported the reversal. 
 
 Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, called the White House’s security and privacy claims “a White House lie.” 
 
 “What’s really going on is the swamp suits Donald Trump just fine,” Blanton said, mocking the president’s campaign pledge to “drain the swamp” of Washington. 
 
 Blanton said Obama’s White House shared logs of nearly 6 million visitors with no national security ramifications. Under Obama, the White House released records about three months after visits occurred. The policy contained exceptions, however, allowing the White House to withhold the names of people it believed were sensitive or personal visitors to the Obama family. 
 
 The Trump White House’s decision not to follow suit was met with alarm from transparency advocates, including the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, whose president said the organization was “disappointed.” 
 
 “This new secrecy policy undermines the rule of law and suggests this White House doesn’t want to be accountable to the American people,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. 
 
 The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said its lawsuits against the Obama administration pressured it to be transparent with the visitor logs. 
 
 “It’s disappointing that the man who promised to ‘drain the swamp’ just took a massive step away from transparency by refusing the release the White House visitor logs ... that provide indispensable information about who is seeking to influence the president,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement. “This week, we sued the Trump administration to make sure they would continue to release the logs. It looks like we’ll see them in court.” 
 
 Indeed, several groups already filed a lawsuit demanding the White House turn over the records, as well as logs of visitors to his homes in New York and Florida. These groups had already gone after Trump for refusing to release his tax returns, as other major presidential candidates have done. 
 
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 “The only reason to keep secret the White House visitor logs is to hide from the American public the corporate influence-peddlers who are seeking favors and gifts from the White House,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “More secrecy equals more cronyism, more insider dealing and more corruption.” 
 
 Trump himself inadvertently relied on the visitor logs last month when he tweeted, under scrutiny about his aides' contacts with Moscow, that the Russian ambassador visited the White House 22 times under Obama. A Daily Caller reporter whose piece Trump appeared to be quoting tweeted Friday that she used the visitor logs as the basis of her story. 
 
 Under the Presidential Records Act, a legal expert told POLITICO, the visitor records will be available for release if requested through the Freedom of Information Act, but not until five years after Trump leaves office.
– The Trump administration announced Friday it will be keeping all White House visitor logs secret until at least five years after President Trump leaves office, Time reports. According to Politico, the Obama administration had been putting the visitor logs online about three months after the fact. In breaking with that policy, White House communications director Michael Dubke cites "grave national security risks and privacy concerns," CNN reports. Meanwhile, anonymous White House officials say the logs must remain private to allow Trump to meet with whomever he wants to get advice. The Trump administration is citing a federal court ruling that deemed White House visitor logs "presidential records," and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. It's also defending itself against Obama's precedent, with one official saying there was only a "facade of transparency" under the former administration. Visitor logs made public under Obama were often redacted to remove "sensitive" names, celebrities, donors, or personal family visitors. Despite the decision to keep the visitor logs private, Dubke says the White House under Trump "has broken new ground in ensuring our government is ... accessible to the American people."