The Trump transition team said Tuesday it had reached an agreement with the Biden White House to start coordinating the handoff of federal agencies to the new administration.
By turning down about $7 million in federal funding for the transition, Trump will be able to raise unlimited private donations for his transition.
The Trump team said it would not accept foreign donations and would disclose its donors, without specifying when or how.
In 2016, Trump transition officials agreed to accept the full suite of government funding and office space.
The Biden White House said it disagreed with that position but wanted to proceed with a smooth transition.
On Tuesday, the Biden White House and the Trump transition team announced that they had reached an agreement to begin coordinating the transfer of federal agencies to the incoming administration.
However, the Trump team continues to reject a number of standard elements of the presidential transition process, such as federal funding, office space, and equipment, as well as formal government background checks and security checks for his transition staff. The agreement lacks the presidential transition act’s ethics pledge for the president-elect, which states that Trump will abstain from conflicts of interest while in office.
The Trump team signed an ethics plan for the transition staff, which was made public on the General Services Administration’s website, which oversees the transfer of hundreds of agencies.
The agreement makes it possible for Trump-appointed “landing teams,” a custom of presidential transitions, to begin entering government buildings and getting briefings from career staff about the workings of hundreds of federal agencies. Trump will have unrestricted private donations to raise for his transition after declining roughly $7 million in federal funding.
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Vice President Kamala Harris signed the transition agreement prior to the September election, but this lengthy delay does not imply that Trump’s transition will now follow the same pattern as his predecessors. The president-elect disregarded important security and transparency requirements.
A strong mistrust of the federal government by the president-elect for impeding his first-term agenda or, in certain situations, supporting legal actions against him is also reflected in the limited agreement. During the campaign, Trump and his political supporters promised to drastically reduce and reorganize the 2 million-person federal workforce.
For instance, the Justice Department has not signed a memorandum of understanding with Trump’s transition team that would enable the department to perform thorough reviews and background checks for the security clearances required by many Trump landing teams in order for the Biden administration to lawfully share national defense briefings and classified intelligence. The White House says that only Trump transition officials who have signed a nondisclosure agreement and have a valid security clearance will receive the briefings.
With the White House, certain ethics guidelines were established. For example, it is forbidden for transition officials to use knowledge they acquire in their new positions for their own gain.
However, the plan omits references to the president-elect’s own moral behavior during the transition, which Congress added as a new clause to the Presidential Transition Act after moral dilemmas plagued the first Trump administration.
Valerie Smith Boyd, director of the Center for Presidential Transition, a resource for presidential candidates within the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, said the language is a first step in demonstrating how a president-elect would avoid conflicts of interest once in office. According to her, “it may be the nature of the negotiation that a compromise needed to be made” following months of discussions between the Biden White House and the Trump transition to come to an agreement that would permit Trump officials to join federal agencies. “.”.
In a statement following the announcement of the deal, White House spokeswoman Saloni Sharma said the Biden administration was committed to ensuring a seamless handover of power to Trump.
“The safety and security of the American people, who are depending on their leaders to be accountable and ready, depend on a seamless transition,” Sharma stated. Because of this, the White House and GSA have been urging the Trump transition team to sign the GSA and White House Memoranda of Understanding simultaneously since September, just as they have done in past transitions. “”.
A request for comment from the Trump transition team regarding the president-elect’s failure to sign an ethics agreement clearing him of any potential conflicts of interest was not answered.
“This is consistent with President Trump’s commitment to save taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” the team said, citing the decision to forgo federal funding as one of the reasons for the decision. Individual donations to the transition would have been limited to $5,000 if the funds had been accepted, and donors would have had to be made publicly known. Without stating how or when, the Trump team stated that it would reveal its donors and would not accept donations from overseas. However, because it will be privately funded, it is able to raise an infinite amount of money.
Government funding and office space were accepted in full by Trump transition officials in 2016. At the time, Congress allocated $1 million to assist in preparing new appointees and $6 million for the transition.
This time, however, Trump’s team turned down GSA’s offer due to long-standing mistrust of the departing administration and the federal bureaucracy, especially the FBI, which has historically performed background checks that the government uses to determine security clearances. The Biden White House expressed disagreement with that stance but wished to move forward with a seamless transition. The DdotC. A Trump campaign lawyer’s Washington Post-based law firm has screened some of the candidates the president-elect has declared he will name to his Cabinet.
The Trump team provided an ethics code that was comparable to the one it had in place eight years prior to the president-elect’s first term as part of the agreement. According to the code, officials should abstain from any activities they have lobbied on within the last 12 months, and registered lobbyists are prohibited from participating in the transition. Members of the transition are also barred from lobbying on matters they managed for six months following the transition.
Meanwhile, the incoming administration’s unconventional approach has frightened critics because it lacks formal background checks and security clearance investigations.
“This announcement raises concerns about corruption and does not address important questions regarding national security threats and FBI vetting of nominees,” Sen. Warren, Elizabeth (D-Mass. said in a statement following the announcement of the agreement. “There seem to be significant discrepancies between the letter of the law and the ethics agreement during the Trump transition. “.”.
“Nothing more than a ploy for well-connected Trump insiders to line their pockets while pretending to save taxpayers money,” Warren said of Trump’s reliance on private donors to finance the transition. “.”.
