The Trump regime is refusing to recognize Joe Biden's victory, and as such, will not lift a finger to provide the incoming Biden administration with anything far as resources for a smooth transition.
A Trump administration appointee is refusing to sign a letter allowing President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team to formally begin its work this week, in another sign the incumbent president has not acknowledged Biden’s victory and could disrupt the transfer of power.
The administrator of the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency in charge of federal buildings, has a little-known role when a new president is elected: to sign paperwork officially turning over millions of dollars, as well as giving access to government officials, office space and equipment authorized for the taxpayer-funded transition teams of the winner.
It amounts to a formal declaration by the federal government, outside of the media, of the winner of the presidential race.
But by Sunday evening, almost 36 hours after media outlets projected Biden as the winner, GSA Administrator Emily Murphy had written no such letter. And the Trump administration, in keeping with the president’s failure to concede the election, has no immediate plans to sign one. This could lead to the first transition delay in modern history, except in 2000, when the Supreme Court decided a recount dispute between Al Gore and George W. Bush in December.
“An ascertainment has not yet been made,” Pamela Pennington, a spokeswoman for GSA, said in an email, “and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law.”
The GSA statement left experts on federal transitions to wonder when the White House expects the handoff from one administration to the next to begin — when the president has exhausted his legal avenues to fight the results, or the formal vote of the electoral college on Dec. 14? There are 74 days, as of Sunday, till the Biden inauguration on Jan. 20.
“No agency head is going to get out in front of the president on transition issues right now,” said one senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The official predicted that agency heads will be told not to talk to the Biden team.
So again, this isn't just mean-spirited or petty. This is active sabotage, and it will result in thousands of additional deaths as the pandemic rages across the country this winter and the incoming Biden team can't get started, because the regime is already letting a thousand Americans die a day from COVID-19 and still refuses to activate any federal resources whatsoever.
And speaking of petty, Trump's house cleaning is now under way as he puts acting cabinet officials in place to execute whatever vile garbage he has in mind in the last 70 days of his reign, and it should worry all of us that he's starting with the Pentagon.
President Trump on Monday announced he had fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, a move that comes days after Joe Biden was projected to have won the presidential race.
"I am pleased to announce that Christopher C. Miller, the highly respected Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (unanimously confirmed by the Senate), will be Acting Secretary of Defense, effective immediately," Trump said in a series of tweets. "Chris will do a GREAT job! Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service."
Trump and Esper have had a rocky relationship since the summer’s nationwide racial justice protests. During the height of the protests, Trump threatened to deploy active-duty troops to quell the demonstrations. Esper responded by holding a press conference at the Pentagon announcing his opposition to deploying troops.
Esper’s public split reportedly angered Trump so much that he had to be talked out of firing the Defense secretary then.
Earlier Thursday, NBC News reported that Esper had prepared a letter of resignation, and Politico reported that while Esper was expected to resign soon, the uncertainty of the election had put his plans on the back burner.
Trump replacing the Secretary of Defense with the Pentagon's top counterterrorism official is a really, really big clue as to what's coming next, guys.
And finally, Mitch McConnell made it official as the GOP Senate gets back to confirming more Trump federal judges: Joe who? Never heard of him.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Republican in Congress, on Monday threw his support behind President Trump’s refusal to concede the election, declining to recognize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory as he argued Mr. Trump was “100 percent within his rights” to challenge the outcome.
Even as he celebrated the success of incumbent Republican senators who won re-election and the winnowing of Democrats’ House majority, Mr. McConnell, the majority leader, treated the outcome of the presidential election as uncertain, and hammered Democrats for calling on Mr. Trump to accept the results.
“President Trump is 100 percent within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options,” the Kentucky Republican said, delivering his first comments since Mr. Biden was declared the winner. “Let’s not have any lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election.”
Mr. McConnell did not contradict Mr. Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen from him, instead endorsing the president’s vow to pursue a bevy of lawsuits in key swing states aimed at handing him a victory. He said that “this process will reach its resolution” and that the nation’s legal and political system “will resolve any recounts or litigation.”
Following him on the floor, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said flatly that “Joe Biden won this election fair and square.” He called Mr. Trump’s claims “extremely dangerous, extremely poisonous to our democracy” and warned Republican leaders not to give it oxygen.
“Republican leaders must unequivocally condemn the president’s rhetoric and work to ensure the peaceful transfer of power,” Mr. Schumer said.
Yet none have done so, and only a handful of Republican senators have acknowledged Mr. Biden’s victory.
There will be no concessions from Trump, from McConnell, or from any Republican. There will be no bipartisanship, only self-serving treacle from Collins, Murkowski, and Romney when it suits them, and nothing that doesn't.
But of course, that's the plan. Always was.
You all knew that, of course.
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