Presumptive President-elect Joe Biden is so far being denied resources by the Trump administration to initiate a formal transfer of power.
Emily Murphy, the administrator of the General Services Administration, has yet to sign off on a transition that would allow funding, office space, and access to government agencies to the Biden team.
“An ascertainment has not yet been made. GSA and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law,” GSA spokeswoman Pamela Pennington said in a statement to reporters on Sunday.
“The GSA Administrator does not pick the winner in the Presidential election. In accordance with the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, as amended, the GSA Administrator ascertains the apparent successful candidate once a winner is clear based on the process laid out in the Constitution,” GSA’s spokeswoman had said shortly before that. “The Administrator’s ascertainment is done for the purposes of making services provided by the PTA available. Until an ascertainment is made, the statute allows for the Biden Transition Team to continue to receive the pre-elect services from the government (e.g., limited office space, computers, background investigations for security clearances). GSA has met all statutory requirements under the PTA for this election cycle and will continue to do so.”
Many media outlets, including the Associated Press, called the race for Biden on Saturday, but President Trump is refusing to concede, instead pinning his hopes on legal challenges and recounts in battleground states where he and his allies claim there were illegal votes and other irregularities.
Biden’s team is already moving ahead with transition planning but also called on Murphy to affirm that the Democrat won the election.
“Now that the election has been independently called for Joe Biden, we look forward to the GSA Administrator quickly ascertaining Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the President-elect and Vice President-elect,” a Biden transition spokesperson said in a statement. “America’s national security and economic interests depend on the federal government signaling clearly and swiftly that the United States government will respect the will of the American people and engage in a smooth and peaceful transfer of power.”
The GSA’s budget request to Congress in February requested $9.9 million to “provide for the orderly transfer of Executive leadership in connection with the expiration of the term of office of the President and the inauguration of a new President. That included “$8.9 million for the incoming administration and outgoing administration and $1 million for appointee orientation activities.” The request noted that the funds would be needed, in part, to help the GSA fulfill the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, which was passed “to promote the orderly transfer of the executive power in connection with the expiration of the term of office of a President and the inauguration of a new President.”
But the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the appropriations process, and a continuing resolution signed by Trump two months ago keeps federal agencies funded at fiscal 2020 levels through Dec. 11.
Murphy and Trump’s GSA have been a target of Democrats in Congress for years. GSA’s inspector general concluded that in 2018 the GSA “did not comply” with the Improper Payments Acts, which “aim to eliminate and recover payments improperly made by federal agencies,” but that it “complied” with the laws in 2019. The GSA was also swept up in the controversy related to the FBI’s longtime proposed relocation from the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown D.C. to the Virginia suburbs, with the Trump administration pushing for the FBI headquarters to remain at the same spot with the building razed and rebuilt there instead.
Republicans also harshly criticized how the GSA in the waning days of the Obama administration and in the early days of the Trump presidency handled the transition period.
An October report from Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley concluded that the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller’s team secretly sought and received access to the private records of Trump’s transition team from the GSA, under a different agency head, despite an agreement between Trump and the administrative agency.
Mary Gibert, the presidential transition team leader at the GSA, told administration officials that the agency would not host the Biden team until there was an “ascertainment” from GSA, according to the Washington Post, which noted that 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.
The Electoral College is scheduled to cast their votes for president on Dec. 14.
