Donald Trump’s refusal to cooperate with the outgoing Biden administration is putting national security at risk and weakening safeguards against corruption, the US senator Elizabeth Warren has warned.
The president-elect has broken from precedent by refusing to sign memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with the current White House team and failing to release a comprehensive ethics plan.
On Thursday, Warren, a Democratic senator for Massachusetts, wrote to the General Services Administration (GSA), an agency that oversees much of the presidential transition process, to raise the alarm.
In her letter, seen by the Guardian, she noted that the MOUs are normally mundane agreements, which no previous president-elect has refused to sign. “The Trump team’s unprecedented refusal to sign agreements with the outgoing administration threatens the American public by hamstringing incoming officials’ ability to govern responsibly,” Warren wrote.
“The Trump Transition has also refused to publish an ethics plan, increasing the risk of the incoming administration governing for the benefit of special interests rather than the American public.”
Biden hosted Trump in the Oval Office last week and promised to “do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated”. Trump said he looked forward to a “transition that’s so smooth it’ll be as smooth as it can get”, but suffered a setback on Thursday when Matt Gaetz, his pick for attorney general, withdrew from consideration due to sexual misconduct allegations against him.
The president-elect’s transition has been led by Howard Lutnick, Cantor Fitzgerald’s chief executive, and Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. Both have been named in Trump’s new cabinet.
Warren co-sponsored the Presidential Transition Enhancement Act of 2019 to strengthen the ethics requirements that govern presidential transitions. In her letter to the GSA administrator, Robin Carnahan, she wrote that the Trump transition team had not signed MOUs with the GSA for administrative support or with the White House for access to federal employees, facilities and documents.
Nor had it entered an MOU with the justice department for FBI background checks on nominees, delaying critical vetting for national security positions. Warren cited The 9/11 Commission Report, which linked the delayed transition in 2000 to national security vulnerabilities that “may have contributed to the 9/11 attack”.
In addition, the Trump transition team missed the 1 October deadline set by the Presidential Transition Act for publishing an ethics plan, raising concerns about potential corruption and undue influence from special interests.
Warren wrote: “The Trump Transition has prepared an ethics code, but it includes nothing about how President-elect Trump will manage his own extensive financial conflicts of interest – which experts anticipate will be one of the most alarming corruption challenges of the incoming administration.”
Furthermore, she said, the transition team remains unbound by donor contribution limits and disclosure requirements, and is relying on private donors rather than federal funds – “opening Trump’s team to financial corruption with no public transparency even before he takes office”.
Warren also requested information and accountability from the GSA regarding the Trump transition team’s actions, which she said violate the Presidential Transition Enhancement Act, signed into law by Trump himself.
She added: “In effect, President-elect Trump is undermining his administration’s ability to manage urgent national security threats, health and safety threats, and serious conflicts of interest starting on day one of his presidency.”
