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President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
- The United States has a long history of peaceful transfers of power that will likely continue despite President Donald Trump’s attacks on the legitimacy of the election result.
- If Trump truly refused to leave the White House, on January 20 he would become an “outsider.”
- Here’s what to expect in the weeks and months to come.
The United States has a long history of peaceful transfers of power that will likely continue despite President Donald Trump’s attacks on the legitimacy of the election result, national security experts said.
Here’s what to expect in the weeks and months to come.
Does Trump face a deadline to leave office?
Yes. The US presidential elections have not formally ended. Voters, loyal to parties that generally pledge to support the candidate who gets the most votes in their state, will meet on December 14 to formally cast their votes. The newly seated Congress accepts the results of the Electoral College on January 6. If Biden wins the Electoral College vote, as expected, he will be sworn in at noon on January 20, a date set in the Constitution.
Can Biden rise to power despite Trump’s objections?
Yes. Trump has a power limit to slow down Biden’s transition.
A law called the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 makes career civil servants central to the transfer of power. They face deadlines to provide data and access to incoming officials.
Under the law, the transition process will accelerate once a federal agency called the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), which manages the federal buildings, names an apparent election winner. At that time, the incoming president’s team can obtain informational books, access funds, and send representatives to visit government agencies.
On Sunday, transition experts sent a letter to GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, urging her to recognize Biden as the winner.
“While there will be legal disputes that will require adjudication, the outcome is clear enough that the transition process must begin now,” the letter from the Center for Presidential Transition said.
The GSA said in a statement Saturday that it “determines the apparent successful candidate once the winner is clear based on the process set forth in the Constitution.”
Political scientists told Reuters they are optimistic about the resilience of this legal framework.
Despite the animosity between Trump and Biden in the election campaign, the Trump administration earlier this year complied with legal requirements to provide federal office space and government resources to the Biden campaign.
Government officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. This oath would require recognizing Biden as the incoming president if he wins the Electoral College, regardless of what Trump says, said Robert Chesney, a professor of national security law at the University of Texas.
“I find it very hard to believe that the military, the Secret Service, the FBI or any other relevant part of the bureaucracy will agree with Trump if the Electoral College or a court says otherwise,” Chesney said.
Would the military fire Trump if he refuses to leave?
Two US military veterans raised the possibility that the military might remove Trump from office by force in an “open letter” to US top general Mark Milley in August.
“If Donald Trump refuses to leave office when his constitutional term expires, the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order,” said the letter, published in Defense One and written by John Nagl, a retired. Army officer, and Paul Yingling, a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel.
But others have said that it would be better to leave that measure to the US Secret Service, citing a fundamental US legal principle that military personnel should stay out of internal law enforcement affairs.
“We have constitutional processes to deal with this, and the military is nowhere in that equation,” said Kori Schake, director of foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
If Trump really refused to leave the White House, on January 20 he would become an “outsider,” Chesney said.
“The Secret Service would come and escort him,” he said.
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