Washington
CNN
—

With the presidential election now called for President-elect Donald Trump, the Biden administration is now preparing for a peaceful transfer of power to its predecessor in 76 days — even as Trump’s team actively skipped a series of key deadlines during the initial planning process.

Representatives from Trump’s team met with federal agency transition planners last week to discuss “post-election readiness,” a White House official said.

But the president-elect has still not signed two critical memorandums of understanding with the Biden administration to unlock transition activities that could begin as early as Wednesday, ensuring the next administration can get up to speed quickly and receive the information it needs.

“I don’t think it’s possible to make an effective transition without entering into the MOUs to access critical government support,” Max Stier, the president and CEO of the nonprofit and nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, told CNN.

Stier added: “The Biden team will undoubtedly do everything they can to close this loop, but there are legal limits to what they can do without the Trump team’s consent to follow the law.”

Led by the White House Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration, planning for a transition began before the Republican or Democratic Party had selected its 2024 nominee.

CNN has contacted the OMB and GSA for comment.

Trump’s transition team is chaired by Linda McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration during his first term, and Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald.

Both the Trump and Harris campaigns were expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the GSA on September 1 that gives them access to office space, communications, equipment and IT support. The campaigns were also expected to submit an ethics plan and identify the first people who would need security clearances to receive classified information during a transition.

Trump’s team did not sign that memorandum.

GSA “is prepared to provide services to the Trump transition team once an MOU is executed and services accepted,” a GSA spokesperson said.

The federal transition coordinator, a White House spokesperson told CNN, is “actively working” with the president-elect’s transition team to complete his MOU.

Both the Harris and Trump campaigns were expected to sign a separate memorandum of understanding with the White House on October 1, outlining terms of access to agencies, including personnel, facilities and documents.

Trump’s transition team also failed to meet that deadline.

Refusing support from the federal government, Stier said, “poses an enormous and unnecessary risk to national security and preparedness.”

The Biden administration began preparing for this transition in 2023, beginning with the appointment of a federal transition coordinator, a senior career official who serves as the key liaison between the candidates and the eventual president-elect. Activity picked up again in early 2024, and in April OMB sent a memo to every federal government agency outlining what needed to be done.

The Agency Transition Directors Council, co-chaired by OMB Deputy Director Jason Miller and GSA Federal Transition Coordinator Aimee Whiteman, began meeting monthly with career representatives from each agency.

Professional officials – of which there are more than 2 million – generally serve from administration to administration, while political appointees – of which there are about 4,000 – serve under one president and resign at the start of a new administration, although they can stay if so requested. requested by the new team.

Each government agency was required to draw up a succession plan for all its senior political officials by September 15. And by November 1, each agency was required to have briefing materials ready for the eventual president-elect’s team.

The purpose of this briefing material is “to help inform the next administration about what awaits them when they come in, what the issues are, what the administration has done to address them, and where they think the priorities will be in the future should be,” said Valerie Boyd, director of the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service.

These materials focus less on policy and more on organizational structure, logistical information and topics such as budget processes and the distribution of political appointments. The memos and briefing materials serve as a “useful guide” to help organize expected talks between the Biden administration and the next administration’s transition team, a senior administration official told CNN.

While organizations like Stier’s have worked in recent years to institutionalize the transition process, the specter of bias looms, leading to questions about how — and whether — such briefing materials would be used by a future administration.

Several Biden appointees who also served under former President Barack Obama have suggested that their experiences preparing for the 2016 transition provided both muscle memory and a cautionary tale: Hours spent preparing memos and briefings could be absorbed by a new government that has no need or need for it. .

“We were waiting for the calls (from the Trump team), waiting for people to show up, but that never happened. They never took our memos,” said a senior official who served under both Presidents Joe Biden and Obama. The Trump campaign, this official said, has shown “no indication that they want to use anything we provide to them.”

Trump has also indicated he plans to make sweeping changes for career federal government officials, including turning thousands of those jobs into political appointee positions, CNN reports. Policy experts have warned that federal workers could be fired unless they prioritize loyalty to Trump over serving the public interest.

These experts warn that these measures would hollow out and politicize the federal workforce, drive out many of the most experienced and knowledgeable employees, and open the door to corruption and a system of political patronage.