Summary
Two weeks after his 2024 election victory, Donald Trump has yet to sign key transition agreements with the Biden administration and the General Services Administration (GSA), delaying security clearances, briefings, and resources for his incoming team.
The agreements include an ethics pledge aimed at preventing conflicts of interest, which Trump reportedly opposes.
Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have criticized Trump for potentially violating federal law.
Despite the holdup, Trump is moving forward with Cabinet appointments, though his pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, withdrew amid ethics investigations.
There is no transition. This is being operated as a hostile takeover.
I’m starting to think the plan is never to sign. For those unaware all this does is get him and his team access to various briefings to bring them up to speed on where things are currently at. Y’know, minimize the chaos inherent in changing governments.
But Trump loves chaos. He loves to feel like he’s moving fast and breaking things. And most importantly, he loves having enemies.
What will actually happen here is that Biden will just give up and give Trump the briefings anyway (which he will ignore, or fail to turn to for). But if the Dems do dig their heels in, Trump will announce that they’re trying to block him from taking office. It’ll the be the start of what is almost certainly a four year project (and, to be clear, this is going to happen either way); blaming every screw up on “Democrat insiders” working to undermine them from within the government. This insidious enemy will be everywhere and anywhere, constantly working to disrupt all their beautifully laid plans.
You know that if it was an incoming democrat president taking over for a republican president, they’d be pulling the “oops you missed the deadline to turn in your paperwork, looks like we gotta give it to the runner-up” routine.
looks like we gotta give it to the runner-up
These documents are not related to Trump becoming president, but related to him receiving briefings and stuff prior to taking office as he is the president elect.
They should have made it a law to be required to sign it. There are a lot of norms that should have been made into law but Congress sat on their thumbs on that for the last four years.
It required a death in office for them to mandate term limits, there’s no way they’ll ever ratify simple procedure.
He doesn’t have to. It’s not a legal obligation, it’s a “norm.” Elizabeth Warren is incorrect. She may have helped write it, but she seems to not understand it. I imagine that’s why her accusation is so vague. It violates no laws to refuse to sign, and that’s the legal interpretation before factoring in the new presidential immunity decision. He is vested with the full power of the executive when he is sworn in whether he signs the transfer agreements or not.
They won’t even try prosecuting him for his alleged treasonous behavior at this point. The idea they’re going to try to make a legal case out of a paperwork violation is pure fantasy for, like, six different reasons.
Then don’t transition power. Tell them they get nothing until they sign it. It was Trump’s law in the first place.
It’s not a law, and it was created in 1963 and augmented in 2010. He gains presidential power regardless of if he signs them or not.
