The United States Secret Service says it does not keep records of who President Joe Biden meets with at his residences in Delaware.
The agency’s statement came in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The New York Post.
Biden’s frequent weekend trips to his home state made headlines at the end of his first year in office. The president spent 26 of the 52 weekends in 2021 at either his Wilmington or Rehoboth Beach houses. Additionally, Biden spent 13 weekends at the Maryland presidential retreat Camp David. He spent a total of 99 full days at one of the two Delaware properties.
Seeking more information on the President’s meetings while away from the Oval Office, The Post requested one year of visitor log records. Secret Service Freedom of Information Act officer Kevin Tyrrell sent a response to the outlet on April 18 saying the “Secret Service FOIA Office searched all Program Offices that were likely to contain potentially responsive records, and no records were located.”
The White House has said it does not disclose who visits Biden’s properties in Delaware to protect the privacy of his family.
“I can confirm we are not going to be providing information about the comings and goings of the president’s grandchildren or people visiting him in Delaware,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a press briefing in August.
The Biden administration had announced in May it would release White House visitor logs each month to make “good on President Biden’s commitment to restore integrity, transparency, and trust in government.”
“However, select records that implicate privacy, national security, or other concerns will be withheld,” the statement noted.
In January, Psaki justified Biden’s frequent trips as the state’s sentimentally significant meaning to the President.
“The president goes to Delaware because it’s his home,” Psaki said during a press briefing in January. “It’s a place that is obviously close to his heart,” she added, as many of his family members are buried there.
During a speech in Ohio in February, the President openly remarked on his frequent trips from Washington D.C. to Deleware.
“Every time I get a chance, I go home to Delaware,” he said. “You think I’m joking? I’m not.”
Biden’s presidency has been marked not just by frequent absences from the White House but also a lack of more formal events traditional to other administrations and American diplomacy.
“He’s hosted no state dinners. Sightings around town are few, and often involve a quiet trip to church. He was a no-show at last weekend’s Gridiron Dinner, a traditional station of the cross in elite Washington circles where pols dress in white tie to deliver stand-up yuks and make nice with reporters. Every president since Benjamin Harrison has attended the event at least once,” Politico’s Michael Schaffer wrote on April 8.
Biden has made at least six trips back to Delaware in 2022 and has spent four weekends at Camp David.
