Trump team signs some, but not all, critical transition documents
The Trump transition team has signed an agreement with the current administration that will unlock access to resources to further the transition process, but the Trump team said they will not sign another critical transition agreement with the General Services Administration that would make the transition more secure and transparent, the Biden White House said Tuesday.
Biden White House officials said Tuesday that President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has yet to agree to terms on a memorandum of understanding with the Justice Department, which will allow for the processing of security clearance requests.
The General Services Administration is an independent federal agency that is in charge of federal office space, but also supports transition teams, presidential inauguration work, and, under the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, must regularly report to Congress on the status of transition planning.
requests for security clearances for incoming administration officials who will need access to briefing materials and national security information, and those clearances cannot happen without a signed memorandum of understanding between the Trump transition team and the Justice Department.
The Justice Department, not the White House or General Services Administration, is responsible for security clearances for transition personnel.
“To date, the DOJ MOU is not signed but progress has been made towards an agreement,” a Justice Department spokesperson said. “The Department of Justice is ready to process requests for security clearances for those who will need access briefing materials and national security information once the MOU is signed, which we hope will happen very soon.”
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow with the University of Virginia’s Miller Center who focuses on presidential transitions, said the terms of the memo of understanding outlined Wiles reflect, in her assessment, an effort from the Trump transition team to shield themselves from transparency.
“They’re sort of making it up as they go, because it’s never been done like this before,” she said.
While Wiles has suggested not signing the General Services Administration document saves taxpayer money, using taxpayer money comes with strings attached — specifically, more requirements for transparency and documentation, Dunn Tenpas said.
“If you take government resources, the memorandum with GSA requires that you then have to report all donations to the transition, and they cannot exceed $5,000 per person,” she said. “It’s two things: One, they want the privacy of who their donors are and if they don’t accept the GSA money, they don’t have to disclose anything — and secondly, they have a few supporters, like Miriam Adelson and Elon Musk that are billionaires… So this notion of getting $7 million from the government to help jump-start your transition just isn’t as attractive as it might have been to the Harris campaign, but I think more importantly, they probably don’t want people to know that so-and-so gave $2 billion to the transition.”
Additionally, government servers — unlike, say, private gmail accounts during a transition — are more secure and subject to the federal Freedom of Information Act, she said. FOIA allows citizens to request communications and other records.
“GSA wants them to use the computers for the government because they think that they have more security within their networks, and they worry that if they’re doing government business on the transition on a private network, that could be hacked more easily,” Dunn Tenpas said. “They say things like the transition already has existing security and information protections built in, which means we will not require additional government and bureaucratic oversight. But the other reason is, if they sign onto the government computers, then all of those emails are subject to FOIA requests.”
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Robert Legare
contributed to this report.
Kathryn Watson
Source: cbsnews.com