Trump blows through transition deadlines, sparking security concerns

Story by Avery Lotz. November 16, 2024.

  • Transition Delays: Trump’s transition team has not signed key agreements with the General Services Administration (GSA) and the White House, delaying access to federal resources and security clearances.
  • Risks: Missing these agreements could hamper secure communications and coordination between the incoming and outgoing administrations, potentially leading to significant operational issues.
  • Political Tensions: The process has become politicized, with Trump team expressing distrust of the Biden administration and concerns over ethics pledges and donor disclosures.
  • Negotiations Ongoing: Discussions between Trump’s and Biden’s teams are ongoing, with both sides working to resolve the issues and ensure a smooth transition.

With 65 days until President-elect Trump is sworn in, his administration-in-waiting is still bypassing the official process designed to facilitate the transfer of control over the vast federal bureaucracy.

Why it matters: Trump’s transition team tells Axios they’re still discussing the agreements needed to kickstart the transition. For now, future Trump administration officials won’t have access to the agencies they’ll soon lead, to secure communications systems, or potentially to security briefings and clearances.

  • Trump’s team has so far declined to sign agreements which would force them to disclose donors and pledge to avoid conflicts of interest.
  • The transition process is designed such that the winner quickly gets access to office space, federal funding, and government personnel and systems, and other recent presidential transitions — including Trump’s in 2016 — began it well before Election Day.
  • Trump told President Biden when they met Wednesday that the transition will be “as smooth as it can get.” Without the agreements in place, experts are doubtful.

What are the agreements?

The Trump transition team has missed deadlines on two key agreements required by law: one memorandum of understanding with the General Services Administration and another with the White House.

  1. The GSA agreement, due Sept. 1, outlines the terms on which a transition team can take up office space, IT services and other equipment and facilities.
  2. The White House agreement, due Oct. 1, is more critical, as it grants the transition team with conditions of access to employees, facilities and documents of federal agencies.
  • Everything rests on this White House MOU,” Valerie Smith Boyd, the director of the Center for Presidential Transition, told Axios.
  • “Any access to any information from any agency is opened up by this agreement,” she said.
  • Neither of those agreements have so far been signed.

A third agreement outlined in the Presidential Transition Act (PTA), but not explicitly required by law, governs the Department of Justice security clearance process for national security and transition officials.

Also mandated by the White House agreement and required by the Presidential Transition Act: candidates must produce and publish an ethics plan to guide their transition.

What are the risks of not signing?

Missing the GSA deadline could keep the transition team from having a secure IT infrastructure in place to communicate with federal agencies, Smith Boyd said.

  • And in an election that’s already been impacted by a number of hacks, those cyber shields carry heightened importance.

Without the White House memorandum, communications between the incoming and outgoing administrations could be hampered, meaning “there could be surprises on day one,” Smith Boyd said.

  • She pointed to the transition between George W. Bush and Barack Obama — when the incoming and outgoing teams coordinated in the face of a terror threat1 to the then-president-elect’s inauguration — as the “gold standard.”
  • But the agreements also enable more mundane but still important communications about the day-to-day operations of an individual department.
  • “You cannot waltz into the Defense Department or CIA or any federal agency without an agreement with the existing government about what the terms of engagement will be, who are the people who are able to come in,” Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told CSPAN.

Risk factor: Experts have pointed to a grave comparison from Bush’s 2000 transition.

  • The 9/11 Commission determined2 that the delayed transition hampered the Bush administration’s ability to get key appointees in place and up to speed, recommending2 a number of reforms so “transitions can work more effectively.”
  • That included changes allowing transition teams to “obtain security clearances immediately after the election is over.”
  • The PTA directs the FBI and other agencies to expeditiously conduct background investigations in order to provide security clearances to and candidates for high-level national security positions before the inauguration. A 2004 reform also calls for clearances to be expedited for transition team members who need to access classified information.

Yes, but: To start processing those security clearance requests, the incoming team needs to provide a list of names, Smith Boyd says. The transition team did not confirm to Axios whether that had happened.

  • “You need a long runway in order to be prepared to step in and not make a mistake. Mistakes will cost us a great deal. Those agreements are the starter pistol for all of the other action that needs to take place,” Stier said.

State of play: The Justice Department said in a statement last week that it is “prepared to deliver briefings to the transition team on our operations and responsibilities” and will “stand ready to process requests for security clearances for those who will need access to national security information.”

Why the holdup?

The agreements provide transition teams with resources and protections — but they also place a $5,000 cap on transition-related donations.

  • When a candidate accepts the GSA’s services, their team must also disclose private donations for their transition efforts.
  • CNN also reported last week that concerns over the ethics pledge under the White House MOU, in which candidates vow to avoid conflicts of interest once sworn in, were one reason driving the delay.
  • The Trump transition did not specify their concerns about the agreements.

Between the lines: This is one of many previously straightforward processes that has become increasingly politicized since the rise of Trump, who deeply distrusts the “deep state” and the Biden administration in particular.

  • Under Trump, the GSA waited weeks3 after Biden was declared the election winner before allowing him to formally begin the transition process.
  • In August, Trump told the Daily Mail he would decline intelligence briefings offered to presidential nominees during his campaign to avoid being accused of leaking information.

What they’re saying: Trump’s team has emphasized that their transition has been privately funded, and thus they don’t need congressionally appropriated dollars.

  • Tulsi Gabbard, a member of Trump’s transition team and his pick to oversee U.S. intelligence, accused the Biden administration of trying to control the transition process..”They’re freaking out because they can’t place their moles within the transition team to try to figure out what Donald Trump is doing so that they can spin up their media propaganda machines and try to preempt and undermine the work that we are doing to bring great patriots together to actually fix the government,” she said before the election.

What’s the latest on negotiations?

Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the the Trump’s-Vance transition team, told Axios on Tuesday that their lawyers continue to “constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act.”

The other side: Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last week that Chief of Staff Jeff Zients had reached out to Trump transition co-chairs Linda McMahon and Howard Lutnick, and that while the necessary agreements had yet to be signed, the administration was “ready to assist” to ensure a smooth transition.

  • Lutnick told CNN before the election that Trump’s team will “probably” sign the agreements, assuming the lawyers can “work it out.”
  • He added: “But these are not important issues.”

  1. Obama kept a secret note in his pocket at his inauguration in case of a terrorist attack - The Washington Post. By Michael S. Rosenwald. January 20, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. EST ↩

  2. 9/11 Commission Report ↩ ↩2

  3. General Services Administrator says Biden transition can formally begin. Updated Nov 23, 2020. ↩