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The Biden-Harris administration’s promises for a smooth transition maintained a major caveat as a legal “standoff” kept the president-elect’s nominees from accessing information.

Prior to the Election Night victory of President-elect Donald Trump, the transition team maintained their efforts to shirk the status quo and skip out on the taxpayer-funded option that opened the door to scrutiny from career bureaucrats. Now, according to a report from Politico, attempts by cabinet nominees to coordinate with their intended departments are being rebuffed.

In particular, advisers to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the outlet that repeated efforts to engage with the Department of Health and Human Services he’s been tapped to lead have been met with a cold shoulder.

Administration officials attributed the lack of civility shown the president-elect thus far to opting out of signing agreements that would make the transition team privy to resources under the Presidential Transition Act, but would also place his team under scrutiny from the General Services Administration, the White House and the Justice Department.

“Watchdog groups, ethics experts, and former government officials say the delay in coordination with federal agencies, which typically begins by mid-November, means the new administration won’t be up to speed on the state of the career workforce and budget and what headaches may await them when Trump takes the oath of office on Jan. 20,” stated Politico as the report continued:

“The failure thus far to sign the memorandums has also troubled Biden officials, who are particularly concerned about the potential national security implications.”

“Without the agreements in place, Trump’s team can’t access any non-public government data — depriving it of a full view of efforts the White House and federal agencies are taking to safeguard against a range of threats.”

“That includes classified elements of the administration’s involvement in conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and details of high-level conversations with allies. The stalemate has also left the Trump transition largely in the dark on threats closer to home that could quickly mushroom into crises, like the continued spread of avian flu.”

Politico added that both the White House and Trump transition team had confirmed negotiations were ongoing, but that “until the standoff is resolved, Trump’s Cabinet nominees will gain no more insight than the general public into the workings of the departments they’re supposed to run.”

Meanwhile, as talking heads have heavily criticized the nominees, a new CBS News/YouGov poll found a majority of Americans approve of how the president-elect is handling the transition and remain “happy” or “satisfied” with his victory.

Elon Musk’s America PAC posted the results with the caption, “Despite the daily legacy media outrage, 59% of Americans say they approve of Donald Trump’s handling of the Presidential transition.”

Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, previously said that the alternative approach to the transition had resulted in establishment figures “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.”

“So the doing things different has already started and the more you hear these people in Washington freak out, the more you should know, like, alright, we’re doing good,” she added.

It had also been made clear by the transition co-chairs Linda McMahon and Howard Lutnick, since they were respectively nominated as Education Secretary and Commerce Secretary, that, in lieu of the Government Accountability Office’s ethics pledge, team members have been forced to sign a “robust ethics pledge” that included disqualification for anyone who participated in “regulated lobbying activities with respect to such matter, as defined by the Lobbying Disclosure Act, within the previous twelve months.”

South Dakota Sen. Johne Thune, Republican Majority Leader-elect, noted Thursday that, barring the typical federal background checks of nominees, Senate confirmations would be “very thorough in vetting these nominations and ensure that the correct background information is available.”

Kevin Haggerty
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