Topline
The U.S. State Department has been preventing President-elect Joe Biden from accessing a stack of messages sent to him by foreign leaders, CNN reported, highlighting the latest instance of the Trump administration’s unwillingness to initiate the transition process.
Key Facts
Biden has not been able to receive dozens of official messages sent by world leaders, as the State Department, which is expected to support all communications for the president-elect, has withheld them as Trump refuses to concede the election.
The president-elect has managed to get in touch with several foreign leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel, the U.K.’s Boris Johnson, Canada’s Justin Trudeau, among others, but it has had to do without the logistical and translation support the State Department usually provides.
According to the report, Biden’s team would prefer to use the State Department’s resources as they had not expected to deal with the challenge of facilitating these calls.
To circumvent this roadblock, foreign leaders reportedly reached out to former Obama-era diplomats to get in touch with Biden’s team once they figured out that the State Department was not helping them do so, the report added.
The official Twitter handle of the Biden-Harris transition team shared readouts of the president-elect’s calls with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the U.K., Australia, Japan and South Korea, late on Wednesday evening.
Forbes has reached out to the state deparment for a comment.
Key Background
President Trump, his administration and his allies have refused to acknowledge Biden’s victory, as they pursue recounts and legal action against the election outcome. Besides blocking Biden from receiving messages from foreign leaders, the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also claimed that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” despite Trump’s election loss. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has also refused to share Presidential Intelligence Briefings with Biden, stating that it will not engage with the Biden transition until the General Services Administration (GSA) ascertains who won the election. Emily Murphy, the administrator of the GSA has refused to issue a letter of “ascertainment,” which would allow the transfer of power to begin. At one point, Biden’s team was reportedly preparing to initiate legal action if the transition is not allowed to begin, but Biden said on Tuesday that legal action was not necessary and that his team would continue on as if Trump had conceded.
What To Watch For
Republican Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) this week said he would “step in” by Friday if the Biden transition team did not start receiving intelligence briefings by then. But when asked by Forbes what power he has to “step in,” Lankford’s campaign pointed to a tweet from the senator asserting Trump is “fully in his right to ask for recounts and for every legal question to be fully vetted and resolved.
Further Reading
State Department is preventing Biden from accessing messages from foreign leaders (CNN)
Pompeo Asserts There Will Be ‘Smooth Transition To A Second Trump Administration’ (Forbes)
