WASHINGTON (AP) — A good government group is warning of dire consequences if President-elect Donald Trump continues to avoid a formal transition plan with the Biden administration — no action they say has limited the federal government’s ability to provide security clearances and briefings for the incoming administration. .
Without planning, says Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, it’s “impossible” to “be ready to govern on day one.”
The president-elect’s transition is led by Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive who led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. He said last month that he hoped to sign an agreement starting the formal transition process with the Biden White House and the General Services Administration, which is essentially the federal government’s landlord.
But the agreement still hasn’t been signed, and pressure is starting to mount.
The delay is delaying the federal government’s ability to begin processing security clearances for hundreds of Trump administration national security officials. That could limit staff working on sensitive information on Inauguration Day on January 20.
This also means that Trump appointees have not been able to access federal facilities, documents and personnel to prepare for office.
That approval is required by the Presidential Transition Act, which takes effect in 2022. It mandates that the president-elect’s team agree to an ethics plan and limits and discloses private donations.
In the act, Congress set a deadline of September 1 for GSA approval and October 1 for White House approval, in an effort to ensure that the incoming administration is ready to regulate when it enters office. Both deadlines are long overdue.
Stier, whose organization works with candidates and incumbents in the transition, said in a phone call with reporters on Friday that the new administration is “stepping in with the responsibility of taking over the most complex operation on the planet.”
“In order to do it effectively, they really need to do a lot of prework,” he said, adding that Trump’s team “has approached this in a, frankly, different way than previous transitions.”
“They have, so far, passed all the traditions and, we believe, important agreements with the federal government,” said Stier.
In a statement this week, Lutnick and McMahon said Trump “has selected personnel to serve our nation under his leadership and implement policies that make American life affordable, safe, and secure.” He did not mention the signing of the agreement to start the transition. .
People familiar with the matter said ethics disclosures and limits on contributions imposed by congress were factors in the hesitation to sign the agreement.
Trump’s transition spokesman Brian Hughes said Friday that “the attorneys continue to engage constructively with the Biden-Harris Administration attorneys on all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act.”
“We will update you once a decision is made,” Hughes said.
The Trump team’s reluctance persisted even as Biden’s White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients, reached out to Lutnick and McMahon to emphasize the important role the agreement with the Biden administration and the GSA will play in starting the presidential transition.
“We are here to help. We want to have a peaceful transition of power,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “We want to make sure they have what they need.”
The unorthodox approach to the presidential transition process recalls the time immediately after Trump’s election day victory in 2016. Days later, the president-elect fired the head of the transition team, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and threw out his transition playbook. already compiled.
But Stier said that, even now, Trump’s team has signed preliminary agreements that allow the transition to begin — something that hasn’t happened yet.
“The story is not over yet. But he was late,” he said. “And even if he could have completed the agreement now, he was late in completing it.”
