Trump considers bucking presidential transition system

Former President Donald Trump is weighing a go-it-alone approach to presidential transition planning, which could dramatically slow his takeover of the federal government if he wins in November.

The Trump transition team has yet to sign two agreements with the federal government to receive transition funding and planning assistance and to share information — a break with modern precedent. Instead, transition co-chairs Linda McMahon, who served as small business administrator in the Trump administration, and investor and GOP mega-donor Howard Lutnick are plowing ahead with their own processes for vetting potential political appointees and preparing policy plans.

The decision not to take federal assistance allows them to raise unlimited funds without disclosing their donors, while avoiding oversight from federal bureaucrats, whom Trump and his advisers deeply distrust. But if Trump wins the election and continues to drag his feet on signing the agreement with the White House, it will limit the information he and his team can access to understand current federal operations and challenges.

While the Trump transition team insists it will be ready to hit the ground running if the former president wins, experts say it’s likely to further set back its preparations, already running well behind schedule, to take over the executive branch and its millions of employees.

Not working with the federal transition coordinators “adds another degree of difficulty to executing the transition because there’s so many points of interaction with the executive branch,” said Rich Bagger, former chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former executive director for Trump’s pre-election 2016 transition. There’s all this “serious work that needs to take place that, it just seemed to me, was facilitated by being … fully integrated into the transition structure.”

Beyond simply planning the future president’s policy agenda, a presidential transition is charged with identifying candidates to fill thousands of vacancies, readying plans to run the federal government’s voluminous agencies, and applying for security clearances for staff to receive sensitive information.

The Presidential Transition Act aims to facilitate a smooth transfer of power between administrations, establishing guidelines for the sitting government’s transition planning and designating various forms of assistance that the General Services Administration can provide to the presidential transitions and, post-election, the president-elect. By Sept. 1, the General Services Administration is expected to reach an agreement with the candidates’ teams regarding what kind of support and facilities it will provide before the election. By Oct. 1, the White House is expected to reach an agreement with the candidates’ teams around access to agencies, post-election, which includes an ethics plan for its staff.

Under that current system, the campaigns are not required to accept the assistance but, up until now, none has declined it.

While Vice President Kamala Harris’ transition team has reached agreements with the federal government to receive assistance both pre- and post-election — including office space and funding for its current transition planning — the Trump transition has blown through both deadlines to engage with the federal government.

A person involved in the Trump transition said that they are exploring a “spectrum” of legal options for working with the current administration, including signing and not signing the GSA agreements, and the potential implications.

In a statement, Trump transition co-chairs McMahon and Lutnick said conversations with the federal government are ongoing, and they continue to plan to staff the next administration and devise policy initiatives.

“The Trump-Vance transition lawyers continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act,” they said. “Any suggestion to the contrary is false and intentionally misleading.”

Saloni Sharma, a White House spokesperson, confirmed in a statement, “To date, we have entered into an MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] with the Harris transition team outlining such conditions. The Federal Transition Coordinator is actively working with the Trump transition team to complete an MOU.”

And Channing Grate, a spokesperson for GSA, said they are “prepared to provide services to the Trump transition team once an MOU is executed and services are accepted,” which would cover things like “office space, equipment, communications and IT services.”

There are a number of reasons the Trump transition team may not want to accept GSA’s help or funding. Resources like free office space, provided to the campaigns under the GSA agreement, are less valuable when people are used to working remotely. And by not accepting funding from the federal government, the team may collect unlimited contributions from private donors, without disclosing their identities. That money can be spent on salaries for transition staff, who in years past have often served on a volunteer basis.

By not signing the agreement with the White House, which provides access to the agencies, the Trump transition can also avoid submitting an ethics pledge, whose requirements are outlined by the Presidential Transition Act.

McMahon and Lutnick noted in their statement that their staff have already signed “a robust ethics pledge” that they drafted per Presidential Transition Act stipulations. Among the requirements outlined by the the Trump-Vance Transition ethics code, which was first reported by the New York Times, is that anyone who has engaged in “regulated lobbying activities with respect to such matter, as defined by the Lobbying Disclosure Act, within the previous twelve months” is disqualified from participating in the transition.

The Harris transition requires that people who have registered as federal lobbyists in the last year receive approval from the office of general counsel.

Trump allies also harbor distrust of the executive branch, according to two people familiar with their thinking. Trump’s 2016 transition alleged that special counsel Robert Mueller improperly obtained their communications from the GSA amid his probe into Russian interference in the election.

Ken Nahigian, who became executive director of the 2016 Trump transition after the election, argued the existing GSA process was particularly onerous and restrictive, without many advantages. Raising money was particularly difficult with the $5,000 limit on contributions, and the GSA also required the disclosure of the transition's donors, he added. Nahigian has recommended to those around the Trump campaign or transition that they reject the GSA’s support.

“You have to follow all the GSA rules to a tee; it’s very onerous,” Nahigian said, adding, “People cost money.”

He argued, moreover, that there is still plenty of time to coordinate the 2024 transition. Those involved in planning for a Trump transition — something the former president is superstitious about — have also expressed confidence in their ability to put together a menu of policies and political appointees.

“You’re going to see the greatest set of talent ever walk on the field on January 20,” Lutnick, who is overseeing the personnel vetting process, told Bloomberg News on Wednesday. “ We have 5,000 people already who we know who have been vouched by the greatest people like Ross Perot in energy and Chuck Schwab doing finance, and everybody. They are helping and building for Donald Trump the greatest team.”

But Trump’s previous transition to the White House illustrates the risks of not coordinating with the government. Under Christie and Bagger, the 2016 transition signed its first agreement with the federal government months before the election and was working on obtaining security clearances and setting up processes for the Office of Government Ethics for potential nominees, Bagger said.

Additionally, the GSA provided important information technology for cyber-protection, he recalled.

GSA also provides the transition team with government email addresses. Federal agencies are not required to share information with dot com or dot org email addresses, whose security may be unknown, explained Valerie Smith Boyd, director of the Center for Presidential Transition, a nonpartisan resource for presidential candidates.

“We’ve already seen hacking attempts in this election cycle, and of course, the dot gov addresses also help federal agencies understand that yes, these individuals that you’re communicating with are official representatives of the candidate,” she said. “If the candidate does not have dot gov email addresses, will federal agencies have to brief only in person? Would they have to offer, kind of, standalone computers that are not connected to a network? Would they have to provide, kind of, go back to paper binders full of material?”

For the Trump 2016 transition, the complications started after Election Day, when Christie was ousted as the transition team chief. The new transition officials failed to complete the paperwork for the second transition agreement with the administration, allowing it to receive briefings and information from federal agencies, until mid-November . One former Trump administration official recalled how the initial White House was particularly slow at hiring and had a “bare bones” operation for a few months.

Transition experts warn that the launch of the next Trump White House could be severely impaired if the Trump transition continues to delay, or potentially decline to sign, the agreements in the months before inauguration.

“They’re going to walk onto the stage with almost grotesque incapacities,” said Terry Sullivan, executive director of the White House Transition Project and professor emeritus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “They're going to come in with incredible arrogance, and so they're going to be incredibly ignorant of what they need to know.”