President-elect Donald Trump's team has missed deadlines on signing two standard memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with key federal entities to get presidential transition planning underway, reports Axios.
The two MOUs include an agreement with the General Services Administration (GSA), which outlines support services such as access to office space, IT equipment, and federal staff, and an agreement with the White House defining how an incoming administration can access agencies after the election. A third agreement outlined in the Presidential Transition Act, but not explicitly required by law, governs how the Department of Justice covers security clearance requests for transition team members who need to access classified information.
Valerie Smith Boyd, the director of the Center for Presidential Transition, told Axios "everything rests on" the White House MOU.
"Any access to any information from any agency is opened up by this agreement," Boyd said.
The GSA was supposed to be signed on Sept. 1 and the White House MOU on Oct. 1.
Previous reports indicated that the transition team was exploring not seeking support from the GSA for its operations, a break from historical precedent, though federal transition officials last week said they expect the agreement to be signed soon.
The reason for the delay: Trump, according to Axios, has a profound distrust of the "deep state" and the Biden administration.
Trump transition spokesperson Brian Hughes told Axios that the Trump-Vance transition lawyers "continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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