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Transitional officials for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Monday asked a senior Trump administration-appointed official to end what they said was an unjustified obstruction of money and access that federal law says must flow. towards the winner of a presidential election.
Officials, who discussed the background with reporters Monday night, said it was almost unprecedented that Emily W. Murphy, the administrator for the General Services Administration, refused to issue a “verification” letter, which allows Mr. Biden’s transition team to begin the transfer of power.
By law, Ms. Murphy, the director of the expanding agency that keeps the federal government running, must formally recognize Biden as the incoming president in order for her transition to begin. Three days have passed since the news organizations projected that he was the winner of the election and Ms. Murphy has yet to act.
Transition officials said their inaction prevented Biden teams from moving into government offices, including secure facilities where they can discuss classified information. Teams cannot meet with their agency counterparts or begin background checks on top cabinet nominees who require top-secret access.
A White House official pointed out, as have several Trump allies, that the transition after the 2000 presidential election was delayed by the judicial fight between the campaigns of Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush during several weeks. The official said it would be odd for President Trump to send some kind of signal to allow the transition to begin while he is still involved in court fights.
But Biden’s aides said the dispute in 2000 involved a state with only about 500 ballots separating the winner and loser, far fewer than in the current contest. In every other presidential race in the past 60 years, the determination of the winner was made within 24 hours, they said, even as legal challenges and recounts continued for weeks.
They said they were considering “all options”, including possible legal action, to pressure Ms Murphy to let the transition begin.
Ms Murphy, who described herself as “a little clumsy” at her Senate confirmation hearing in October 2017, also saying that she was “not here to get headlines or make a name for myself,” so far has opted to side with the White House and Mr. Trump, between Biden’s team and a smooth transition.
The president refuses to grant elections and his campaign has disputed results in several states. Most Republicans have refused to acknowledge Biden, much less appointees like Murphy. Therefore, the transfer of power that must take place is in limbo.
A White House spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a question about whether Trump was willing to allow Murphy to begin the transition without a concession from the president, while their fights unfold in court.
Leslie Dach, who would lead the transition for the Department of Health and Human Services if Hillary Clinton were to win the presidency in 2016, said that despite the advanced work done by Biden’s team during the campaign, nothing could supplant direct access to agencies. . , and that’s impossible without Mrs. Murphy.
“I think this is Trump sending a clear signal to everyone who is still in the administration that they should follow up on their grievances,” Dach said.
The stalling of the transition is part of a widespread refusal to acknowledge the election results by the Trump administration.
Officials in the White House presidential personnel office, known as the PPO, have signaled that they will fire political appointees seeking new jobs outside of the administration during this time, according to two people briefed on the internal discussions. And in a call with USAID staff members Monday, officials described the election was still taking place, according to a recording obtained by Axios.
In a Sunday letter from the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition, veterans of previous administrations warned: “While there will be legal disputes that will require adjudication, the outcome is clear enough that the transition process must begin now.”
Biden’s aides have been working for months to develop fine-tuned transition plans to help the president-elect quickly deliver on his campaign promises. Those review teams made up of people who know each federal agency are critical.
Ms. Murphy has the legal authority to “activate” the transition, releasing the $ 6.3 million in federal funding budgeted for the effort, making office space available, and training team members to visit agency offices and apply. information.
It is often seen as the official starting gun. Under normal circumstances, Ms. Murphy’s decision would generally be motivated by the election loser’s concession speech, which is not a legal act, but indicates that both parties accept the outcome. In 2016, the acting administrator of the General Services Administration, also known as the GSA, under President Barack Obama made the determination on the morning of November 9, right after the election.
But there is no specific provision for when Ms. Murphy must act.
Pamela D. Pennington, a spokeswoman for the GSA, said in a statement Monday that “a verification has not yet been done.”
He added that “the GSA and its administrator will continue to meet and comply with all the requirements established by law and comply with the precedent established by the Clinton administration in 2000.”
In a previous statement, Ms Pennington said that “the GSA administrator does not pick the winner in the presidential elections,” adding that “the GSA administrator determines the apparently successful candidate once the winner is clear based on the process. established in the Constitution. “
Biden’s aides said they expected Murphy to act within days, but were bracing for the possibility that political pressure from the president and his Republican allies would prevent him. In a statement on Twitter on Sunday, Jen Psaki, a transition official, graciously urged Ms. Murphy to make the announcement.
“Now that the election has been independently called for Joe Biden, we hope that the GSA Administrator will quickly determine Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as president-elect and vice-president-elect.” Ms. Psaki wrote. “The national security and economic interests of the United States depend on the federal government clearly and promptly signaling that the United States government will respect the will of the American people and engage in a smooth and peaceful transfer of power.”
Biden’s transition officials were more blunt Monday night, effectively saying that the Trump administration was reneging on promises made in the past six months to ensure a proper transfer of power should Biden win.
Officials said they signed three separate memorandums of understanding, including one signed by Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, that set out the access and money Biden’s team would receive in the days following the election. None of that has been able to continue, they said.
The coronavirus pandemic has made office space less critical for Biden’s transition team, which has been meeting mostly remotely for the past few months and will continue to do so, according to a transition official. There is a reduced staff in the office space that was provided by the government before the elections.
But once Ms Murphy indicates that the transition can begin, that office space will be expanded and equipped with computer systems that will give the new administration access to classified information and systems, plus a safe place to have secret conversations. .
If that doesn’t happen in the next few days, the Biden administration has other options. The transition officers have private offices that they can continue to use, and Biden and his team will continue to operate remotely. When the president-elect met with his pandemic advisory board on Monday, he was in Delaware and the board members were on a big screen, calling from their homes or offices.
The biggest issue would be access to the agencies and the information they need to begin carrying out Mr. Biden’s agenda. But people familiar with Biden’s transition said there was a partial solution: Many of the people still working in federal agencies were close to Biden’s advisers and might be willing to work with them to provide them with the unclassified information they need. .
But that would not solve the problem of gaining access to classified information, which could affect the ability of Biden’s national security team to prepare for the emergencies it might face once in office. Transition officials said a specific limitation at this time is that Biden does not have access to a secure State Department facility normally used to route calls from foreign leaders in hopes of congratulating the newly elected president.
Biden has been making those calls, but has not been allowed to use the State Department as has been the practice after previous elections.
Trump and his allies have criticized Democrats and the media for projecting Biden as the winner before legal challenges and recounts have been completed. But historically, the GSA administrator’s verification decision has not expected the results of such challenges.
In 2004, counts were completed in New Hampshire and Ohio after the GSA made a decision. And several states decided by less than one percentage point. In 2016, five counts were filed after the GSA announcement and three were conducted in Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin.
Murphy is unlikely to be at the center of such an explosive situation: She is a low-key bureaucrat who began her career as a Republican staff member on Capitol Hill and professes her love for acquisition reform and lease renegotiations. Democrats who worked with her there said they remembered her as a diligent professional.
But his tenure at the GSA, which he has led since December 2017, has not been without controversy.
In 2018, House Democrats concluded that Ms. Murphy had misled them about her agency’s decision to reconsider the FBI’s plans to move its old Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters to a suburban area. Democrats found that Trump had stepped in to overturn the plan, possibly because he feared a commercial developer could convert a vacant J. Edgar Hoover building into a hotel that would compete with his own Trump International Hotel a block away.
The GSA inspector general found that Ms. Murphy’s testimony on the matter before Congress in 2018 was “incomplete and may have left the misleading impression that she had no discussions with White House officials in making decisions.” when in fact it had, even during a visit to the Oval Office in 2017.
House Democrats have also concluded that Ms. Murphy has been slow to provide them with documents and other information related to the GSA’s leasing of the historic old Washington Post Office building, the hotel site. from Trump, to the Trump Organization.
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