[ad_1]
President Donald Trump has continued to refuse to grant the presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, as bipartisan calls have increased to allow a coordinated presidential transition between the incoming and outgoing administrations to begin in earnest.
Meanwhile, Trump and his allies have launched a series of long-term legal challenges seeking to overturn the results in several key states.
Meanwhile, Biden has officially launched his transition team, starting with a coronavirus task force, 39 transition advisory teams for the myriad agencies that his administration will begin running once he takes office and his White House staff. It has also started receiving reports from national security experts.
Still, the Trump administration’s showdown, which includes the president preventing his cabinet from coordinating with Biden’s transition team, has thrown the period between the November 3 election and the January 20 inauguration in uncertainty.
The transition period that follows elections typically works on two levels, Bruce Jentleson, a Duke University professor and former State Department official in the Obama administration, told Al Jazeera: “One is the statement and the other is the statement. preparation”.
Supporters celebrate Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 presidential election [File: Joshua Roberts/Reuters]
The claim is the loser who grants the election, “the game of the rules, the handshake that normally happens as soon as the results are announced,” he said, adding. “Those rules have already been broken. Even if Trump grants it today, the damage is done. “
The preparation is the massive task of replacing some 4,000 political appointees, 1,200 of whom require Senate approval, in some 40 agencies of the president’s administration, while “portfolios are exchanged, briefings are held and meetings are held” with mid-level staff to ensure nothing goes wrong. the cracks. Those agencies oversee everything: the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, national security, social services, the economy, and commerce.
Biden has particularly highlighted the need to coordinate the COVID-19 response amid promising developments in vaccine technologies, as the pressure on Trump has increased this week.
“More people can die if we don’t coordinate,” he said Monday.
‘The way it has developed … is unprecedented’
The unusual standoff the country is currently in is in part a product of its idiosyncratic electoral process, Karen Hult, a political science professor at Virginia Tech and a board member of the White House Transition Project, told Al Jazeera. Under that system, while the media reliably projects victory shortly after the election, Congress does not approve the final results until just two weeks before the inauguration. That leaves a lot of room for maneuver for the incumbent president.
Under the Presidential Transition Law, both candidates must have a “pre-election transition operation” that organizes all relevant information and documents to be ready for a possible transfer of power, according to Hult.
But in the weeks between the presidential election and the inauguration, much remains in the hands of a little-known agency called the General Services Administration (GSA). When the director of this agency, Emily Murphy, currently appointed by Trump, “determines” the winner of the election, she unlocks more provisions in the Presidential Transition Act, including funding the transition, access to agencies and capacity of the Incoming officials to obtain security clearances. .
President Donald Trump has not made many public appearances since his electoral defeat, although his caravan greeted supporters during a march alleging election fraud in Washington, DC. [Julio Cortez/The Associated Press]
“The GSA administrator has not been provided clear criteria or metrics on which to base its verification decision,” Hult said. “Generally, what the GSA administrator has done is as long as it is clear that the votes have been counted and, although there are recounts or judicial challenges, there is practically no probability that the result will be changed, they find out and move forward. “
If the GSA chief doesn’t determine Biden’s victory in the next few days, Hult said the “next decision point” would likely be December 14, when state voters vote, or January 6, when Congress passes. that vote.
“The way it has developed since November 7 is unprecedented,” he added.
Response to coronavirus
Republican senators, former Trump officials, and even those still serving in the administration have increasingly called on Trump to move forward with a coordinated transition, with concerns particularly focusing on the coronavirus pandemic, as cases continue to rise. at record levels in the US, and national security.
The unspoken warnings come from Trump’s own coronavirus task force, and Dr. Anthony Fauci told NBC’s Today show that he hoped to get the first doses of vaccine in December and to increase in the first months of 2021.
“We want a smooth process for that,” Fauci said. “And the way to do it is essentially by having the two groups talk to each other and exchange information.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned of the implications of a late response to coronavirus [Alex Brandon/AP Photo]
Meanwhile, Moncef Slaoui, who heads the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine project, told the Financial Times that he hoped “nothing would interfere” with the operation.
When asked if that meant coordinating with Biden’s transition, he replied, “I assume it does.”
Others have emphasized the need to share information on drugs and test supplies, personal protective equipment, ventilators, hospital bed capacity, and workforce availability to be ready to respond to the pandemic from day one.
In a letter sent to the White House on Tuesday, leaders of the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association called on the Trump administration to share such critical information about COVID-19 “to save countless lives. “.
“All information about the capacity of the National Strategic Reserve, the assets of Operation Warp Speed and the plans for the dissemination of therapies and vaccines must be shared as quickly as possible … so that our capacity to serve is not lost. to patients, ”the letter said.
National security
Three former Homeland Security Secretaries, Janet Napolitano, Michael Chertoff and Jeh Johnson, warned in recent days about the risks of a delayed transition.
“Having a transition that begins immediately, getting security clearance for the incoming team, giving the president-elect access to current intelligence – all of this is part of the preparation process, so that when a new administration comes in, they can get to march and not have to find out what the threats are and what the capabilities to respond are, ”said Chertoff, a Republican, during a Nov. 13 webinar at the University of Virginia.
Of particular concern is that Biden will not receive the classified daily report that is given to the president and vice president, as is the norm for a president-elect. On Wednesday, Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, urged the president to provide intelligence to Biden even as he continues to contest the election.
In a letter delivered to GSA administrator Murphy last week, a bipartisan group of former national security officials warned against delaying Biden’s transition team from receiving the necessary security clearances.
“Every day the Administrator delays is another day that Biden’s team will run out of critical information to prepare to combat the threats facing the nation,” they wrote in the letter, which was first obtained by Politico.
Those officials, and other observers, have also noted that the official commission on the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S. found that a 36-day delay in the presidential transition due to a recount in Florida had a ripple effect. six months. delay in staffing the national security apparatus.
The report concluded that the delay left the United States more vulnerable and said future transitions should “minimize as much as possible the disruption to national security policymaking.”
[ad_2]
