Trump team barred from agencies amid legal standoffFederal agencies have yet to hear from their future bosses. DS at its best!
ALICE OLLSTEIN, ADAM CANCRYN
11/24/2024 04:00 PM EST
Advisers to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reached out to the Health and Human Services Department multiple times after Donald Trump tapped him to lead the massive agency, hoping to jumpstart coordination before his takeover in late January. They were rebuffed.
Kennedy’s inability to communicate with the agency he may soon manage, confirmed by an administration official with knowledge of the episodes granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations, is just one consequence of the president-elect’s continued foot-dragging on signing the standard trio of ethics and transparency agreements with the federal government — something his team pledged to do shortly after the election.
The Trump transition’s unprecedented delay in signing the agreements has so far prevented the incoming administration from having any formal contact with federal agencies, including sending in groups of policy advisers known as “landing teams.” It also means they can’t access cybersecurity support or secure email servers for transition-related work, or request FBI background checks for their nominees.
Both the Trump transition and the White House confirmed to POLITICO that negotiations on the agreements are still underway. But 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.
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. 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.
Members of Congress in both parties are also alarmed, with three Senate Democrats suggesting to POLITICO that the lack of FBI background checks could prevent Trump’s nominees from securing confirmation — pointing to revelations this week about Defense Secretary pick Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz, who decided to withdraw from consideration to be Attorney General on Thursday after a series of leaks about investigations into alleged sexual encounters with underage women.
“If there is a lack of proper investigation into a nominee, I don’t think [the Senate Armed Services Committee] would allow the nomination to move forward,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a senior member of the panel.
One Republican close to the transition suspected that Trump officials are in no rush to sign the agreements because they believe the operation is running smoothly from Mar-a-Lago without federal assistance.
And many on the right are urging Trump’s team to buck the rules by continuing to use private funds to pay transition staff and conducting their own personnel vetting as they prepare to take over the federal government.
“They don’t need the hassle,” argued one
Republican familiar with Trump’s 2016 transition and the current one, granted anonymity to speak about private deliberations. “[Without the public funding], they’d be left to organize [the transition] the way they want, instead of taking the public money, which opens them up to the GSA and quasi-public organizations whose sole mission will probably be to derail them.”…
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