Trump’s team plots his departure — even if he
won’t
One of the most organized parts of the White House
these days is a surprising place — the West Wing office planning a presidential
transition.
By NANCY
COOK
09/24/2020
06:50 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/24/trump-presidential-transition-421465
President
Donald Trump refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses. But
his team is carefully developing plans for that very outcome.
One of the
most organized and functional parts of the Trump White House these days is a
surprising place — the West Wing office planning a potential presidential
transition.
As the
president rails against mail-in ballots and “Sleepy Joe Biden,” assistant to
the president Chris Liddell has spent weeks mapping out a possible handover of
power to Democrat Joe Biden.
Liddell has
met the congressionally mandated deadlines to file two different transition
reports in May and August. He is working closely with a career government
official who is serving as the federal transition coordinator — typically the
type of worker Trump would label as part of the “Deep State.” And the Justice
Department has already agreed to start pre-processing Biden officials’ security
clearances just in case he wins, according to people familiar with the
planning.
“They are
very, very focused on implementing the law and doing it by the book, and they
are doing a good job,” said David Marchick, director of the nonpartisan Center
for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service.
Chris
Liddell
As
President Donald Trump rails against mail-in ballots and “Sleepy Joe Biden,”
assistant to the president Chris Liddell has spent weeks mapping out a possible
handover of power to the former vice president.
Instead of
on-the-fly decisions, staff infighting or governing by instinct — all hallmarks
of Trump’s leadership style over the last four years — transition planning has
happened quietly, efficiently and with little public fanfare.
The
question is whether Liddell can maintain this level of professionalism if and
when Trump starts paying more attention to the prospect of leaving office.
Trump’s last transition team under Gov. Chris Christie also ran smoothly and
made plans for hiring Cabinet officials and rolling out executive orders —
until the Trump team fired Christie days after winning and threw his binders of
plans in the trash.
“I suspect
the president is totally unaware,” one former Obama transition official said
about Trump and the transition plans. “It could go sideways as soon as he knows
this is going on.”
A White
House official said the president is aware of the transition work of Liddell,
who has been at it for months.
“The Trump
Administration has met and will continue to meet all requirements under the law
as it relates to any needed transition between administrations,” said White
House deputy press secretary Judd Deere.
In a
political environment already gripped by Trump’s repeated refusal to agree to a
peaceful transfer of power, both Democrats and some Republicans feel nervous
about the road ahead. Democrats fear Trump could sabotage it by denying Biden
aides access to federal agencies, slow-walking security clearances or, more
broadly, questioning and undermining the results of the election for several
weeks in November and December.
Friends and
allies say Liddell is aware of the delicacy of the situation and is
purposefully seeking to work under the radar. Liddell declined to comment.
Aiding
Liddell in both the planning for a potential transition, or a second Trump
term, is top White House attorney Pat Cipollone. Liddell and his team have also
been working on a policy agenda for Trump if he wins a second term and are
coordinating with the head of presidential personnel, John McEntee, on possible
senior personnel picks for both the Cabinet and key White House posts.
National
Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, for instance, is not expected to stay
on for four more years. And top aides have been eyeing Jim Donovan, a former
partner from Goldman Sachs, to either replace Kudlow or take a top Treasury
post. Neither Kudlow nor Donovan responded to requests for comment.
The White
House handed Liddell the transition portfolio because of his past work on the
transition team for 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. During
that period, Liddell served as the executive director of the roughly 600-person
Romney transition team and made sure the operation, which functioned more like
a consulting firm, met its deadlines, with timelines and deliverables.
“He knows
how to run the machinery,” said Tim Adams, a former Romney transition official
and a former top Treasury official. “Hopefully, they are leaving him alone and
letting him do this job.”
Following
the 2012 election, the New Zealand-born Liddell helped to write an entire
138-page book on the Romney team’s methodical and corporate approach. It was an
environment well-suited to Liddell’s business background, which includes stints
as the chief financial officer for both Microsoft and General Motors.
In the
spring of 2016, Liddell, who had become a close ally of Trump son-in-law Jared
Kushner, Liddell helped to present on the mechanics of transition planning at a
retreat for the six presidential campaigns.
He joined
the Trump White House in the early days — first working for Kushner’s Office of
American Innovation before becoming a deputy chief of staff in charge of policy
coordination. Though Liddell lacked deep policy expertise like some of his colleagues,
he oversaw the coordination of contentious areas like immigration and trade. In
July 2018, he told POLITICO his newness to policy was an asset, not a weakness.
“It’s
essential that I don’t bring personal bias to the role,” he said at the time.
Roughly
three weeks ago, Trump nominated Liddell to serve as the secretary general of
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the
intergovernmental body meant to encourage economic progress and global trade. A
White House official said the nomination would not affect planning for a
transition or a second term since the selection process takes place between
November and January.
For now,
Liddell is impressing business leaders, good government types and even former
Obama aides with the ease of the White House’s transition planning. The former
Obama transition official said he was “somewhat flabbergasted that they have
maintained regular order for an administration that is not about regular
order.”
Potential
pitfalls still remain if Trump loses.
If the
results of the election are unclear or Trump protests a Biden win, that could
delay the process of the General Services Administration certifying the winner
and giving the Biden team access to millions of government dollars to fund
their transition team and salaries.
The Trump
team could also hold off on allowing the Biden teams to go into the federal
agencies – or simply not communicate with incoming officials.
“The truth is if they decide to not cooperate, there is a way around it,” said Chris Lu, the former deputy Labor secretary under President Barack Obama. Lu served as executive director of the Obama-Biden transition team in 2008. “Democrats have only been out of power for three-and-half years and there are ways to adjust to it.”
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