By Del Quentin Wilber and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 12, 2008

A federal appeals court dealt a blow yesterday to White House efforts to keep secret the names of people who visited Vice President Cheney.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the White House had prematurely appealed a decision by a federal judge last year that visitor logs are public records.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by a watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking information about nine conservative religious leaders who visited Cheney.

White House lawyers argued that the logs are considered presidential records outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. In December, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that the logs are public records and ordered the Secret Service, which maintains them, to process the group's request. The Secret Service could then try to withhold the information under exemptions in the public records law, according to opinions by Lamberth and the appeals court.

The appellate decision, written by Judge David S. Tatel, sent the case back to Lamberth to consider.