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This week, all eyes are on Trump-appointed General Services Administration Administrator Emily W. Murphy to recognize Joe Biden as the election winner and president-elect. Murphy is not a household name, but he is the person charged with officially stating that Biden won the election on behalf of the Trump administration, something Trump has not done himself.
You need to sign a letter to deliver funds to the Biden transition team through a process called verification. This would mark the Trump administration’s first formal recognition that Biden did indeed win the election, but it would also unlock access to national security tools to streamline background checks and additional funds to pay for training and incoming staff.
However, more than 48 hours after numerous news organizations called for the race, Murphy has yet to be fired. A GSA spokesman declined to provide a specific timeline for when the verification would take place, a clear sign that the agency will not get ahead of the president, who has yet to admit he lost.
“A verification has not been done yet,” GSA spokeswoman Pamela Pennington told CNN in a statement Monday afternoon.
The statement also incorrectly compared the current situation, in which all the major news networks that analyze vote totals have projected Biden as the winner, with Bush v. Gore in the 2000 election, where the outcome was in doubt.
“There are no updates at this time and GSA’s position remains the same. Verification has not yet been done. GSA and its administrator will continue to meet and comply with all requirements established by law and adhere to the previous precedent set by the Clinton Administration. in 2000, “Pennington said.
Pennington said in a statement Sunday that the General Services Administration does not choose who wins the election, but rather “determines the seemingly successful candidate once the winner is clear based on the process set forth in the Constitution.”
He declined to respond to CNN’s request for details about the threshold for an “apparently successful candidate.”
The delay has set off alarms for Biden’s allies, who are beginning to realize that the transition may be more difficult than many within the president-elect’s world assumed, two officials told CNN.
Biden had told his allies over the weekend that he wanted to give Republicans, and Trump, a little time to accept the election results, according to officials. They say there is a growing sense that they will have to fight harder to preserve the legitimacy of the election result and Biden’s allies may begin to escalate their rhetoric on this and seek more people to start making the case on television and further, officials said.
At the same time, Trump is beginning to face the reality that he will lose the election, said a Trump adviser, based on conversations within the campaign and with the president, who now sees a “way to lose.” Still, Trump has already started discussing with his aides the possibility of running in 2024.
Previous administrations of both parties generally issued the letter within hours of the networks projecting a winner in the presidential race.
A transition expert familiar with the GSA told CNN that “it has always been a quick decision.”
In Trump’s 2016 election, the source said, it was made by the Obama administration the day after. In 2008, it was held on the night of the elections, around 1 a.m. The only time it was delayed, the source said, was in 2000, when Florida went for a mandatory recount and verification was done the day after the Supreme Court cases were heard. decided.
David Barram, who served as the GSA administrator during the Clinton administration and who determined that Bush was the winner of the 2000 election, said Monday that this year’s election is “dramatically different.”
“First of all, all these media outlets calling him for Joe Biden, I think the winner is pretty clear,” Barram said on the Transition Lab podcast.
“But I sympathize with the GSA administrator, Emily Murphy, but, you know, I have confidence that Emily will do the right thing. I hope the best for Emily. The GSA administrators need to stick together. So I hope it works out well for her and I hope it works out well for the country. “
In early September, the Trump administration agreed to three documents, memoranda of understanding, with Biden’s transition team, as established by the Presidential Transition Act. They were signed by the General Services Administration, the Justice Department, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. At the time, $ 9.62 million was allocated to Biden’s transition team for pre-election services, which the team continues to receive.
Once Murphy makes the decision on a successful election winner, that would trigger the release of an additional $ 9.9 million in funding for post-election services, including $ 6.3 million for the incoming administration, $ 1 million for orientation and training. appointees, and $ 2.6 million for outbound services.
Among the items outlined in those MOUs, a transition official told CNN, was an agreement for the Trump administration to provide Biden’s transition with office space, communications services, payment or reimbursement for certain activities, payroll. staffing, travel for the president-elect, expedited security clearance processes for national security nominees, and secure and compartmentalized national security briefings.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed in a statement late Monday that Biden and his top aides are not yet receiving the Presidential Daily Report, as it is known.
“ODNI follows the statutory direction provided in the Presidential Transition Act, which requires the GSA administrator to find out about the candidate before supporting a possible presidential transition,” the office said.
“ODNI would not have contact with any transition team until notified by the GSA administrator.”
Former Obama White House communications director Jen Psaki, who is working with Biden’s transition on nominations, asked the GSA to find out “quickly” from Biden on Sunday.
Psaki added, “The national security and economic interests of the United States depend on the federal government clearly and quickly signaling that the United States government will respect the will of the American people and engage in a calm and peaceful transfer of power.”
In addition, the advisory board of the Center for Presidential Transition, a nonpartisan group, issued a statement Sunday night, in which it also asked the Trump administration to find out “immediately.”
“Now the real challenge begins. We urge the Trump administration to immediately begin the post-election transition process and the Biden team to make the most of the resources available under the Presidential Transition Act,” the board said in a statement, which was signed. by Bush Administration Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, Bush Administration Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, Clinton Chief of Staff Mack McLarty, and Obama Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.
Meanwhile, there are informal ways to continue the transition process, said Clay Johnson III, who led George W. Bush’s transition in 2000 at a time when the election result was delayed more than a month by disputed results in Florida.
“(Dick) Cheney said, ‘We can’t wait to see who wins this, we have to assume we won it. At full speed,'” Johnson recalled, adding that the Bush transition team was not sure if they would get the government. . support and resources and when it would arrive. Instead, they raised private money and rented their own office space.
“It’s easy to raise money to support a privately funded transition. (Biden’s team) can raise millions of dollars in half a day,” Johnson said.
The Bush team was not legally allowed to offer any formal positions or conduct background checks, so they instead conducted informal interviews and informal background checks, asking candidates to disclose any potential red flags in their records.
The transition expert noted that Murphy is in a difficult position.
“Emily Murphy is a person of great integrity and goodwill. She is an expert. I am sure you are wondering, ‘How the hell did I get here in this position?’ “said the expert. “It’s your decision under the law, it’s just your decision.”
“The GSA is an administrative agency in charge of procurement and is a serious person and a person of high integrity,” added the source.
This story has been updated with additional developments on Monday.
CNN’s Kristen Holmes, Alex Marquardt, Zachary Cohen, Jeff Zeleny, and Jim Acosta contributed to this report.
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