Sen. Chuck Grassley said President-elect Joe Biden should receive intelligence briefings even though President Trump is challenging the election results.
“I would think — especially on classified briefings — the answer is yes,” Grassley, the second-highest-ranking member of the Senate, told CNN on Thursday.
The Iowa Republican’s assertion adds pressure on the Trump administration to act for the sake of national security as it has already been days since the former vice president was projected to win the election, and Trump’s legal challenges and recounts are generally regarded as being long-shot efforts to shake up the contest.
Grassley’s comments come a day after Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, another Republican, said he’d “get involved” if Trump does not begin sharing intelligence briefings with Biden by the end of the week.
So far, the Trump administration has not recognized the winner of the 2020 election. The General Services Administration, which would approve access to transition resources, says an “ascertainment” of a victor has not yet been made.
As a major party candidate, Biden had been receiving periodic intelligence briefings, but he has not yet been given access to the presidential daily briefing, a daily summary of the intelligence community’s high-level analysis on national security threats that has existed since 1946. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it will not contact the Biden team so long as GSA has not formally recognized him as the winner.
Grassley, who is the chairman of the Finance Committee, was asked whether GSA should sign off, allowing the Biden team access to transition resources. He said, “We ought to do what we did” in 2000.
The GSA typically identifies a winner within a day of the results of the race being projected, and weeks before the Electoral College makes the results official. The year 2000 was a rare exception when the agency did not release funds until mid-December after a Supreme Court ruling that handed the election to George W. Bush and former Vice President Al Gore conceded.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to answer a question on Capitol Hill about whether he believes Biden should have access to intelligence briefings.
Biden has said that the daily briefings “would be useful, but it’s not necessary.”
