Advisers to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reached out to the Well being and Human Companies Division a number of instances after Donald Trump tapped him to guide the huge company, hoping to jumpstart coordination earlier than his takeover in late January. They had been rebuffed.
Kennedy’s incapacity to speak with the company he might quickly handle, confirmed by an administration official with information of the episodes granted anonymity to explain inside deliberations, is only one consequence of the president-elect’s continued foot-dragging on signing the usual trio of ethics and transparency agreements with the federal authorities — one thing his staff pledged to do shortly after the election.
The Trump transition’s unprecedented delay in signing the agreements has thus far prevented the incoming administration from having any formal contact with federal companies, together with sending in teams of coverage advisers often called “touchdown groups.” It additionally means they’ll’t entry cybersecurity help or safe e-mail servers for transition-related work, or request FBI background checks for his or her nominees.
Each the Trump transition and the White Home confirmed to POLITICO that negotiations on the agreements are nonetheless underway. However till the standoff is resolved, Trump’s Cupboard nominees will acquire no extra perception than most of the people into the workings of the departments they’re presupposed to run.
Watchdog teams, ethics consultants and former authorities officers say the delay in coordination with federal companies, which generally begins by mid-November, means the brand new administration gained’t be in control on the state of the profession workforce and funds and what complications might await them when Trump takes the oath of workplace on Jan. 20. The failure so far to signal the memorandums has additionally troubled Biden officers, who’re significantly involved in regards to the potential nationwide safety implications.
With out the agreements in place, Trump’s staff can’t entry any personal authorities knowledge — depriving it of a full view of efforts the White Home and federal companies are taking to safeguard in opposition to a variety of threats. That features labeled parts of the administration’s involvement in conflicts within the Center East and Ukraine, and particulars of high-level conversations with allies. The stalemate has additionally left the Trump transition largely at nighttime on threats nearer to dwelling that would rapidly mushroom into crises, just like the continued unfold of avian flu.
Members of Congress in each events are additionally alarmed, with three Senate Democrats suggesting to POLITICO that the shortage of FBI background checks may stop Trump’s nominees from securing affirmation — pointing to revelations this week about Protection Secretary decide Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz, who determined to withdraw from consideration to be Lawyer Common on Thursday after a sequence of leaks about investigations into alleged sexual encounters with underage ladies.
“If there’s a lack of correct investigation right into a nominee, I do not assume [the Senate Armed Services Committee] would enable the nomination to maneuver ahead,” stated Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a senior member of the panel.
One Republican near the transition suspected that Trump officers are in no rush to signal the agreements as a result of they consider the operation is working easily from Mar-a-Lago with out federal help.
And plenty of on the proper are urging Trump’s staff to buck the foundations by persevering with to make use of personal funds to pay transition employees and conducting their very own personnel vetting as they put together to take over the federal authorities.
“They do not want the trouble,” argued one Republican acquainted with Trump’s 2016 transition and the present one, granted anonymity to talk about personal deliberations. “[Without the public funding], they’d be left to prepare [the transition] the way in which they need, as a substitute of taking the general public cash, which opens them as much as the GSA and quasi-public organizations whose sole mission will in all probability be to derail them.”
Whilst ethics consultants fear that the Trump transition hasn’t but begun the company assessment work wanted to be prepared to control, they warned in opposition to beginning that work earlier than signing the three memorandums of understanding with the Common Companies Administration, the White Home and the Justice Division.
“There isn’t any foundation for a president-elect’s staff to enter federal companies and have discussions with out” signing the MOUs, stated Valerie Smith Boyd, the director of the Middle for Presidential Transition on the nonpartisan nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, which assists all events with transition planning.
“The principle factor that it says is that the members of the transition staff will probably be certain by an ethics settlement that ensures that they are utilizing info appropriately, that they restrict the usage of lobbyists and overseas brokers, and that people who go away the transition and return to the personal sector will not use this info for private acquire,” she stated.
A number of companies, together with the Pentagon and State Division, confirmed to POLITICO that they’ve obtained no formal outreach to this point from the Trump transition — from the touchdown groups or different officers.
The Justice Division, in the meantime, provided simply days after the election to begin briefing the Trump staff on ongoing operations and processing safety clearances for its incoming officers, however can not achieve this till the Trump transition indicators the agreements. With out the DOJ settlement, the FBI additionally can not conduct background checks of Trump’s Cupboard picks, which has already emerged as a possible hurdle to affirmation.
Quickly-to-be Senate Majority Chief John Thune (R-S.D.) stated Thursday that within the absence of that federal scrutiny, he and his fellow lawmakers who will probably be voting on the slate of officers should be “very thorough in vetting these nominations and be certain that the right background info is on the market.”
Republican Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.) was much more direct, saying “sure,” when requested if the president-elect’s staff ought to be permitting the FBI to conduct background checks of nominees. “We have to do it by the numbers.”
Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes stated his staff’s legal professionals “proceed to constructively interact with the Biden-Harris Administration legal professionals relating to all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act.” However he declined to elucidate the explanations for the holdup, which provisions have but to be resolved, or after they anticipate to achieve an accord.
Nonetheless, the Biden administration stays hopeful Trump officers will finally signal no less than a few of the agreements, and has each publicly and privately provided the incoming staff no matter help they have to be prepared to control on Day One — nicely conscious of the havoc even a short lived pause in transition prep can wreak.
The multi-week delay Biden’s staff skilled in 2020 because of Trump’s refusal to concede, for instance, blocked their entry to authorities companies and knowledge and hampered their work on nationwide safety and controlling the then-raging Covid-19 pandemic.
“Folks concerned within the Biden-Haris transition felt like they weren’t as ready for the intelligence threats to the nation on Day One as they need to have been,” stated Heath Brown, an affiliate professor of public coverage at CUNY’s John Jay Faculty who wrote a e book about Biden’s 2020 transition. “They felt like that they had not been absolutely briefed.”
And in 2004, the 9/11 Commission printed its investigation that discovered the authorized battle over who gained the 2000 election that delayed the transition from getting underway was one of many causes the eventual winner, President George W. Bush, and his administration had been caught off guard by the terrorist assault months later.
Trump’s choice, so far, to forgo federal transition help and cooperation is unprecedented within the fashionable presidential system. Kamala Harris’ staff signed all three federal memorandums — with the Common Companies Administration, the White Home and the Justice Division — earlier than the November election. Trump’s staff did as well the primary time he ran in 2016, and Joe Biden’s staff did in 2020.
Holding off on signing the agreements has freed the Trump transition from having to abide by a $5,000 cap on donations and a requirement to reveal their donors. However along with delaying coordination with federal companies, it has prevented them from having access to safe authorities e-mail servers, workplace house, and FBI background checks for incoming officers, sparking issues past the incoming administration’s readiness to control.
Amid an uptick in hacking this yr — together with breaches of Trump’s personal staff as lately as August — consultants are alarmed that the transition is eschewing federal cybersecurity help, significantly as they begin to receive intelligence briefings.
And the general public stays at nighttime about potential moral and monetary entanglements of the transition staffers serving to Trump choose the bevy of Cupboard nominees he has introduced in current days.
“Till they signal this settlement, they’re not but authorities staff. They’ll do something they need. They’ll have any conflicts of curiosity they need. They may very well be taking cash from overseas governments for all we all know,” stated Richard Painter, the chief White Home ethics lawyer within the George W. Bush administration. Trump and his staff “have to persuade the American individuals, together with the individuals who voted for them, that they’re working to assist the nation, not simply make a bunch of billionaires even richer. Not signing these agreements is a good way to inform all these working class voters: ‘Thanks very a lot. Now eff you.’”
Hailey Fuchs, Ursula Perano, Joe Gould, Connor O’Brien, Robbie Gramer, Paul McLeary and Gavin Bade contributed reporting.
