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“President-elect Joe Biden’s top adviser said Sunday that a government agency’s delay in officially acknowledging his electoral victory could hinder his efforts to prepare for the distribution of a coronavirus vaccine… The Trump administration hasn’t issued a typically routine technical designation that would allow Mr. Biden’s staff to view detailed classified information, send representatives to embed with government agencies and have the State Department facilitate calls with foreign leaders.” Wall Street Journal
Many on both sides argue that Biden should receive intelligence and other briefings:
“Cooperation on the transition would not harm Trump’s court battles in any way. It also would be extremely unlikely to harm current or future operations of government. Yet the failure to start transition planning could hinder a new administration’s ability to carry out basic, noncontroversial actions of government that serve the American people…
“This is not about who should have power; it is about making sure that the public is well served, no matter who is in charge. If Trump directs his team to cooperate in a smooth transition, then wins his court case, nothing will have been lost. If he doesn’t cooperate, though, and he loses in court, which seems likely, then he will be blamed for stubbornness and selfishness by those who suffer from the effects of a delayed or botched transition.”
Editorial Board, Washington Examiner
Former national security adviser Susan Rice writes that “the Trump administration’s continued refusal to execute a responsible transition puts our national security at risk. Without access to critical threat information, no incoming team can counter what it can’t see coming. If, today, the Trump administration is tracking potential or actual threats — for instance, Russian bounties on American soldiers, a planned terrorist attack on an embassy, a dangerously mutated coronavirus, or Iranian and North Korean provocations — but fails to share this information in a timely fashion with the Biden-Harris team, it could cost us dearly in terms of American lives.”
Susan E. Rice, New York Times
“On Tuesday two former chiefs of staff, John Podesta and Andy Card, flagged the delayed transition after the contested 2000 election as a factor in the 9/11 attacks… What’s more, Card and Podesta noted that Bush *did* start receiving intelligence briefings even as the litigation was playing out in Florida. The delay that damaged the transition was GSA refusing to release transition resources to the Bush campaign because it couldn’t fairly ‘ascertain’ him as the winner until after the court battle… Biden’s not even getting the intel briefings that Bush got, and GSA hasn’t released transition resources to him even though the same agency made an ‘ascertainment’ that Trump had won the election the day after the vote in 2016.”
Allahpundit, Hot Air
“Even the head of Trump’s Warp Speed program is now saying that he’d like to be able to brief the Biden team, and that the program’s success ‘is a matter of life and death for thousands of people.’ ‘Vaccination programs need to be coordinated and seamless,’ Tom Frieden, a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told me. ‘There are enormous complexities to covid vaccination. In the case of our fight against covid, anything that slows momentum could cost American lives.’”
Greg Sargent, Washington Post
Other opinions below.
“Mr. Trump and his supporters have every reason to ridicule the Democrats’ hypocrisy about the peaceful transition of power. The Obama administration lied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court… [and] launched a baseless crusade against Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Flynn, for making a perfectly legitimate phone call to Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Holdover officials from the Obama administration did all they could to impede the new administration, including leaks of classified information about its actions…
“But the Democrats’ corruption of the last transition doesn’t justify the Republicans’ corrupting this one. With the country so angry, divided and suspicious, it is vital that the incumbent administration do everything it can to assist the potential winners in case they prevail, as seems likely. While the Trump campaign presents its evidence in court and watches the recount in Georgia, it should give the Biden transition team the office space it needs, begin briefing its national security team, and provide assistance to ensure a smooth handover.”
Charles Lipson, Wall Street Journal
“The Electoral College does not convene until December 14, 2020. There is time for this to play out. But the odds are slim that the election will be overturned. Every day this administration does not brief Joe Biden is a day our national security is increasingly jeopardized. Joe Biden had been Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He served as Vice President of the United States for eight years. He can keep a secret. President Trump may pull a miracle out of a hat and preserve his presidency. But the odds are against him and so long as he is not willing to at least aid in briefing the probable winner, the odds are against the nation’s security…
“The Clinton Administration in 2000 began providing briefings to President George W. Bush while the contentious legal battles of that year’s election were ongoing and Florida was still counting and recounting just in case he really was the winner. The Trump Administration is not currently doing that for Joe Biden. I understand President Trump’s unwillingness to concede until every allegation is addressed in court. It is his right to pursue challenges. But the President owes the nation a national security transition that can catch what the chaotic transition of 2000 missed — evil stirring in the shadows.”
Erick Erickson, Substack
“Biden and his team are moving ahead with his transition as best as they can, naming a chief of staff in Ron Klain and a lot of people to ‘agency review teams,’ and continuing to hold meetings that likely involve sorting through his options for cabinet posts. Biden said Tuesday at a news conference in Wilmington, Del., that his team could manage without the GSA resources, and he said he wasn’t planning to take legal action to try to force the Trump administration to identify him as the winner of the election. If Biden doesn’t seem all that worried about the slow pace of the transition, it’s not clear why anyone else should be…
“Biden’s spent plenty of time in the White House before; he doesn’t need a tour… When Trump and his team start violating the law, then it becomes a crisis.”
Jim Geraghty, National Review
“President Trump dismissed Defense Secretary Mark Esper and several other top national security officials across the government. At the Pentagon, he has appointed four new top officials, one of them an extremist who had publicly called President Barack Obama a ‘terrorist leader.’ Another hard-liner was installed at the National Security Agency over its director’s objections, and two senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security have been forced out…
“‘Trump has figuratively decapitated our operational civilian leadership in the Pentagon,’ James Stavridis, a retired admiral and supreme allied commander of NATO, told me in an email… He added: ‘I worry about a North Korean or Iranian miscalculation, thinking the U.S. is too distracted to respond appropriately to a fresh tanker seizure in the Arabian Gulf or a new long-range ballistic missile test — something either might do to gain leverage in negotiations with the incoming administration. Similarly, China could move even more aggressively on Hong Kong or even worse Taiwan, while Russia might be tempted to launch a significant cyberattack.’”
Nicholas Kristof, New York Times
“Trump’s lawsuits will not award him the presidency… evidence of widespread fraud is unlikely to arise in an election that Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security just labeled ‘the most secure in American history’… His lawsuits are also mathematically useless. He has focused on 2,000 ballots in Michigan where, at the time of this writing, Biden leads by 148,645 votes. He’s challenging a whopping 180 ballots in Arizona, a state recently called for Biden with a lead of 11,434. Georgia’s short-lived lawsuit sought to shave 53 ballots off a 14,057-vote lead…
“Our system requires legitimate government, which requires legitimate elections. As Senator Chris Murphy put it, if Republicans convince half the country that ‘those people that got elected were illegitimately chosen, then so must be the actions they take when they get in office.’ America has a long history of violently disobeying allegedly illegitimate governments, stretching from the Revolution through secession to the recent plot to kidnap and execute Michigan’s governor for ‘treasonous’ Covid-19 restrictions…
“Even if violence doesn’t ensue this election cycle – and I fervently hope it won’t – the degradation of democracy will reverberate for years to come.”
Laurence H Tribe, The Guardian
“Hillary Clinton conceded to Trump the night of the election and made her formal concession speech the next day, saying, ‘I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans.’ The following day, President Barack Obama invited Trump to the White House, spent an hour and a half talking with him and promised full cooperation for a successful transition… A political system is not simply a collection of laws and rules. It is also an accumulation of norms and behavior. When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says Trump is ‘100 percent within his rights’ to behave as he is, he is missing this crucial distinction.”
Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post
