TRANSITION
2020
Trump relents as administration begins Biden
transition
But the president, in announcing the move by the GSA,
said he was still not conceding.
By MATTHEW
CHOI, GABBY ORR, MERIDITH MCGRAW and NANCY COOK
11/23/2020
06:31 PM EST
Updated:
11/23/2020 11:23 PM EST
More than
two weeks after clinching electoral victory, President-elect Joe Biden can
finally start his formal transition to the White House.
The General
Services Administration on Monday finally acknowledged Biden as the apparent
winner of the 2020 presidential election, allowing his team to get working on
the logistics of the transition. President Donald Trump acknowledged the move
in a tweet, attempting to take credit for the decision, but stressed that it
did not amount to a concession. By law, the president-elect cannot access
federal transition funds or contact federal agencies to plan staffing until the
GSA recognizes an electoral winner.
“I want to
thank Emily Murphy at GSA for her steadfast dedication and loyalty to our
Country,” Trump tweeted, referring to the head of the GSA. “She has been
harassed, threatened, and abused — and I do not want to see this happen to her,
her family, or employees of GSA. Our case STRONGLY continues, we will keep up
the good ... fight, and I believe we will prevail!”
He
continued: “Nevertheless, in the best interest of our Country, I am
recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to
initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same.”
The shift
in posture capped a three-week period that has seen a defiant president refuse
to acknowledge the encroaching reality of a Biden victory. Since election
night, Trump has proclaimed rampant fraud stripped him of victory (but
presented no credible evidence), backed scores of lawsuits to disqualify votes
(but made no progress) and personally lobbied state lawmakers to overturn
Biden's win (but found no takers).
By Monday,
even senior White House officials said the president’s statement was becoming
inevitable, as key states like Georgia and Michigan started to certify Biden's
victory. Still, those same officials were unaware Trump had cleared the way for
the presidential transition to begin until they saw his Monday night tweet,
which was drafted with input from the White House Counsel’s Office, according
to one official familiar with the discussions.
Trump had
spent much of the weekend contemplating what he should do as his options to
contest the election dwindled. He solicited advice from top confidants and
campaign aides. He criticized his legal team’s lackluster performance. One
person familiar with those discussions said “everyone but Rudy [Giuliani]”
encouraged the president to greenlight the transition process, while continuing
to pursue legal options to challenge the election.
People
close to Trump told him that he did not have to concede, but that he should at
least allow the transition to kick in, according to a Republican close to the
White House. The president’s allies were concerned about protecting his legacy
while also hoping to avoid Biden using a botched transition as a major talking
point, the person said.
On Monday,
Trump acceded to the advice, albeit in his own Trumpian way.
“You’ll
have stuff like this that’s very close, but you’ll never be an outright
confirmation of the results or acknowledgment of a loss,” said one adviser to
the Trump campaign.
Similarly,
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that Monday‘s news was “probably
the closest thing to a concession President Trump could issue.“
Later in
the evening, Trump further hammered the point that he had no intention of
stopping his legal fights.
"What
does GSA being allowed to preliminarily work with the Dems have to do with
continuing to pursue our various cases on what will go down as the most corrupt
election in American political history? We are moving full speed ahead. Will
never concede to fake ballots & “Dominion”," he tweeted, referring to
the vote software company that right-wing conspiracy theorists claim switched
votes (there is no evidence to support this and Dominion dismisses the claims).
Until
Monday, GSA had stayed silent on the outcome of the election, breaking with
past precedent of administration's swiftly authorizing government resources for
an incoming administration. The silence continued even as vote counted crawled
to an end and every major news outlet and numerous foreign dignitaries began
recognizing Biden as the winner
With the
GSA‘s acknowledgment, Biden‘s team now has access to over $7 million in public
funds.
“Today’s
decision is a needed step to begin tackling the challenges facing our nation,
including getting the pandemic under control and our economy back on track,”
Yohannes Abraham, transition executive director for Biden, said in a statement
on Monday.
Abraham
added that the team would use the coming days to “discuss the pandemic
response, have a full accounting of our national security interests, and gain
complete understanding of the Trump administration’s efforts to hollow out
government agencies.”
In a letter
to the Biden team, Murphy insisted that her delay in recognizing his electoral
win was not because of personal or political pressures. Murphy said she had
received threats against her and her loved ones if she did not start the
transition, but held off based on precedent relating to incomplete counts and
legal challenges to election results.
“I have
dedicated much of my adult life to public service, and I have always strived to
do what is right,” Murphy wrote. “Please know that I came to my decision
independently, based on the law and available facts.”
CNN first
reported Murphy‘s notice to Biden.
Murphy repeated
her message to GSA employees in an email on Monday evening, using much of the
same language.
“I want you
to hear directly from me: I was never pressured with regard to the substance or
timing of my decision,“ she wrote in her email to staffers, obtained by
POLITICO. “The decision was solely mine. I was not directly or indirectly
pressured by any Executive Branch official — including those who work at the
White House or GSA — to delay this determination or to speed it up.“
Though
Murphy said she was not under private pressure to make a decision, prominent
Republicans had begin publicly pushing Trump to let the transition get
underway.
On Monday
alone, Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander, Shelley Moore Capito and Rob Portman
all publicly urged Trump to approve the transition. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)
made a similar call on Saturday.
Sen. Mike
Lee (R-Utah) last week called White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and told
him he had questions about the GSA’s delay, according to a person familiar with
the call. Meadows assured him the issues would be addressed properly and in due
time.
Even Fox
News‘ Tucker Carlson, who frequently trumpets Trump‘s various allegations of
malfeasance, took to his show to question the validity of former Trump lawyer
Sidney Powell in her lengthy conspiracy theories of mass election fraud. (The
Trump legal team abruptly cut ties with Powell on Sunday night.) Conservative
radio host Rush Limbaugh similarly pressed the Trump camp on his show to
produce evidence of mass improprieties.
“When
you’ve lost Rush Limbaugh and Tucker … ” mused a top GOP official on Monday.
Powell‘s
performance at a news conference last week angered Trump, according to the
Republican close to the White House. She failed to present credible evidence to
support her claims of mass fraud and became combative with reporters when asked
for proof.
It was a
major inflection point for Trump, the Republican said, and it became clear
there was little weight to back such amplified claims.
Still,
Trump and many of his Republican allies have continued to contest the election
as rife with fraud, pushing legal action and investigations that they say could
flip the Electoral College in the president's favor. Yet with no evidence of
widespread malfeasance, a chain of legal challenges having fizzled and margins
in the tens of thousands in key swing states, the odds of such a flip are next
to nil.
And there
are a few hopefuls who are at least publicly holding out hope the election
could turn in Trump‘s favor. One person close to the Trump campaign said after
Monday‘s announcement: “It‘s probably just a realization that there needs to be
some sort of transition in case things don’t turn out his way.“
The
withholding of GSA-authorized funds isn't the only way Trump has stiff-armed
Biden's team.
Trump has
refused to share the President’s Daily Brief with Biden, despite calls from
some Senate Republicans to do so. The Office of Management and Budget has also
pushed forward with Trump’s budget for 2022, acting as though Trump will have a
second term.
The
roadblocks were further aberrations from the collegiality usually shown during
a presidential transition. But they were telegraphed before the election by
Trump, who openly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and warned
Democrats would try to steal the election.
Since Biden
was declared the election's winner, members of Trump’s administration,
including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have also made waves by refusing to
acknowledge Biden as the next president or otherwise casting doubt on the
election's legitimacy.
The
unprecedented delay in the transition has sparked calls for new safeguards to
prevent a similar situation in the future. Max Stier, president and CEO of the
Partnership for Public Service, lamented on Monday that Biden's team has lost
time in addressing some of the nation's more pressing issues. Biden’s
transition team has already voiced concerns that the tardy transition could
have serious consequences in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
“Moving
forward, we must pursue statutory remedies to ensure that a transition is never
again upheld for arbitrary or political purposes,” Stier said in a statement.
“A clearer standard and a low bar for triggering access to transition resources
are crucial to protecting the apolitical nature of presidential transitions.”
Regardless,
Biden’s team didn’t waste time waiting for the official acknowledgment to make
preparations for the White House. His transition team met with former civil
servants and other outside experts to better understand the agencies they’d be
staffing, and he has been winnowing down candidates for various appointments.
Biden named
his chief of staff, Ron Klain, only a couple of days after being announced the
winner. He has also gone ahead with naming key Cabinet positions, including his
secretaries of State and Treasury, over the past few days.
Daniel
Lippman contributed to this report.
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