By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Donald Trump is still fuming over his election loss, is erecting roadblocks to a smooth transition, claiming vote fraud without evidence, filing lawsuits bound to fail, trying to wreck the system before he leaves office.
He is now a lame duck in office – whether he likes it or not – and there is nothing he can do to stop Joe Biden from being sworn in as 46th United States president on January 20, 2021.
Even as Trump tries to hinder Biden from gathering steam for his transition, a top federal election crimes prosecutor resigned on Monday in protest against directive that allegations of voting irregularities be examined before states certify results.
Richard Pilger, director of the elections crimes branch in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, told colleagues in an email that the directive from Attorney General William Barr violates existing rules.
Trump embarks on revenge, destruction on his way out
Biden is moving forward with transition plans and has pledged the most diverse cabinet in history, according to the BBC.
The question is not whether Trump is leaving. It’s how much destruction, revenge and chaos he will wreak on the way out the door, CNN adds.
It warns that Trump’s refusal to concede the election, delusional tweets about states tipping his way and failure to so far grant Biden access to federal funding and resources to power up his administration mean America is in for a rocky 71 days.
Trump may be a lame duck, but he retains the authorities of the presidency until noon on January 20, and his chokehold on the Republican Party was if anything strengthened by winning 70 million votes last week.
So the President has the power – institutional and political – and apparently the motivation to create a great deal of disruption before returning to civilian life.
Barr, who has shown a propensity for using his own power to advance Trump’s political aspirations, on Monday told prosecutors they should examine unsupported allegations of voting irregularities before states certify results in the coming weeks.
The move will raise concerns of a fresh attempt by the Trump administration to overturn the will of voters, but like the President’s campaign, Barr’s memo failed to produce any evidence of fraud.
However, it did lead the top election crimes prosecutor to quit in protest over the change in policy.
And Trump waited only two days after the election was called for Biden to start exacting retribution on those he sees as enemies inside his administration.
He sacked Defense Secretary Mark Esper, apparently because he showed insufficient loyalty to his political goals.
And a senior administration official told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Esper is worried Trump will next fire CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
The pair is said to be at risk for putting US national security ahead of Trump’s desire to use the intelligence services to pursue his “deep state” conspiracy theories.
Esper’s firing reflected Trump’s capacity to rock key agencies of the government in his remaining weeks in office to make it easier to enforce his will and create disruption in the government that could hobble Biden’s early days in office.
“Frankly, he can do a lot of damage, by destabilising every major agency, by firing a whole series of senior leaders,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Monday.
Monday’s developments emphasised that while Biden’s margins in states where the result of the election have yet to be finalised make any overturning of results almost impossible, Republicans are seeking to create a shadow over his triumph in order to delegitimise his presidency in the minds of millions of conservative voters.
That may end up being Trump’s most destructive legacy.
An important, yet not normal, transition
Traditionally, and in accordance with law, an outgoing administration makes available financing, office space and other federal resources to make the business of inheriting an entity as vast as the multi-trillion dollar U.S. government as smooth as possible, on the principle that even political opponents share a desire to preserve the national interest.
Typically, this process begins within hours of an election being called.
According to CNN, new administrations swiftly send “landing teams” into federal agencies to get up to speed in operations, to consider staffing needs and to receive briefings on vital programs.
In national security and military departments, incoming officials learn of covert activity under way, behind-closed-doors diplomacy and threat information that a new president needs to know.
The process also allows officials to get a jump on establishing their national security clearances.
The current transition is even more critical given the raging coronavirus pandemic that is as bad now as it has ever been and a consequent economic crisis.
But so far, Trump-appointed General Services Administration administrator Emily Murphy has yet to trigger the procedure to initiate the transition – known of ascertainment – as Trump continues to insist baselessly that his second term is being stolen by Democrats.
His attitude – hardly surprising after his consistent prioritisation of his personal and political goals – and the organisational roadblocks mean the next few months will be as acrimonious and chaotic as the previous three-and-a-half years of his presidency.
“I think this is going to be the most hostile and tumultuous presidential transition in modern history, at least since the 1932 transition in the middle of the Great Depression,” said Rebecca Lissner, a non-resident scholar at Georgetown University and co-author of the new book “An Open World” that lays out a new roadmap for U.S. foreign policy.
“What we need to fear is what can happen when you have an outgoing Trump administration that actively hobbles the incoming Biden team whether by virtue of incompetence or whether by virtue of outright sabotage, something that does become a more distinct possibility in light of [Trump’s] refusal to accept the result of the election,” Lissner told CNN.
Transition delay serious
Some national security experts are worried that Trump could take steps such as ordering all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan or seek to radically change the U.S. footprint in Asia – moves that might be difficult for Biden to reverse.
And if a President who has consistently chafed at the limits of his power and politicised the Justice Department pursues pardons for his acolytes caught up in criminal cases – or even seeks to create prospective immunity for his family members or himself – he will stoke massive controversy and recriminations.
So far, the Biden team has sought to give Trump space to digest his defeat. But with the Trump campaign vowing to pursue long-shot legal challenges, delays in starting the transition become more serious the more time passes.
Trump’s obstruction contrasts with recent handovers of power in which presidents have ordered their staff to do everything to accommodate their successor’s teams.
Obama administration officials were surprised and grateful with cooperation from President George W. Bush’s White House during the last economic crisis in 2008-2009.
President Barack Obama sought to offer the same courtesy to Trump’s nascent administration, but in many cases incoming officials on a mission to gut the federal government turned a blind eye.
Biden announces coronavirus advisory board
Biden on Monday got straight to work on the most important task his administration will face from day one: tackling the pandemic.
He announced the formation of an advisory board that sent a strong message that science and not politics would dictate the fight against the virus.
It was an almost surreal moment, after months of Trump’s misinformation over the virus, when a figure of authority who is close to assuming the mantle of the presidency pleaded with Americans of all political persuasions to wear masks.
“It’s not a political statement,” Biden said.
One advantage for Biden is that his staff numbers seasoned Washington hands such as Ron Klain – who served as chief of staff to Vice Presidents Biden and Al Gore – and Jake Sullivan, a former senior national security aide, who are prepped for senior West Wing roles.
Despite such experience, however, Democratic operatives have been on the outside for the last four years.
So it was significant to see Coons strike a new note of urgency on Monday evening on the need to get the process moving properly as the Biden camp realises a contested transition is a possibility.
“President Trump needs to accept that he has lost the election. His allies and colleagues here in the Senate need to speak up about this matter and we need to move forward,” Coons said on “The Situation Room.”
Those remarks will be interpreted as a calculated escalation of the Biden camp’s rhetoric since Coons is close to Biden and is considered a possible candidate for a Cabinet post, including secretary of state.
The Biden team has come to realise that the transition is going to be more contentious than they had initially assumed, CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reports.