- The Department of Defense created barriers for the new Biden government during the transition process, Politico said, citing several defense and transition officials.
- The meetings were canceled, delayed or tightly controlled in a way that made it difficult for Biden’s team to obtain information on critical national security issues, including the distribution of vaccines, transition officials said.
- The Pentagon rejected claims that it did not fulfill its transition obligations properly.
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The Pentagon’s transition was uglier than previously known, Politico said on Wednesday, revealing that Defense Department political appointees were gagging generals and maintaining critical information from the new government’s transition team.
Meetings on issues ranging from military operations in conflict zones to vaccines were canceled, delayed or controlled in a way that made it difficult for the Biden transition team to get the information it needed, Politico said, citing several Pentagon and transition officials . After his defeat in the elections, President Donald Trump sacked his defense secretary and installed supporters in important positions, a move unprecedented in the last weeks of a government.
Led by these newly installed officers, the Pentagon limited the visibility of the transition team to activities in parts of the Middle East and Africa, special operations missions and Operation Warp Speed, among other areas. Authorities said obstructing the supply of information about vaccines could hamper distribution operations and, at a time, the virus is spreading across America.
Requests for information were returned “sanitized” and cleared of a lot of important information, and meetings were supposed to be closely monitored to prevent disclosure of certain information by “supervisors” from the general council office.
A transition officer told Politico that they found a “high ranking” military officer after a meeting that was not particularly helpful. “We were alone and he said to me, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t say anything more, but I received very strict instructions,” recalled the transition officer.
Officials said White House appointees at the Pentagon were the main problems that led to obstruction during the transition, a process that aims to ensure that the new government can start work on the first day on security and national defense issues.
“It is completely irresponsible and indefensible,” another transition official told Politico. “Making politics with the national security of the country is really unacceptable.”
Days after losing the presidential election in mid-November, the White House purged the Pentagon’s civilian leadership to include the defense secretary and key political and intelligence positions, and filled vacancies with Trump-loyal individuals.
There were expectations then that the Pentagon shift could affect the transition, which started late when Trump disputed the election results.
In mid-December, Biden’s transition team publicly expressed concern about their access and instructions. Yohannes Abraham, a spokesman for the Biden transition, said at the time that the team had encountered “resistance” from political appointees at the Pentagon.
Days later, then-elected President Joe Biden complained that “the Department of Defense doesn’t even tell us about many things.”
“At the moment, we are simply not getting all the information we need from the outgoing government in the main areas of national security,” he said in later comments in late December. “It is nothing less than irresponsibility, in my view.”
The Defense Department insisted that it did its job regarding the transition.
As of last Thursday, the Biden transition team received 277 responses to requests for information and, as of Friday, the team met with more than 400 political appointees and more than 180 career officials at the Pentagon, Politico said.
Some defense officials said that Biden’s transition team’s complaints were “exaggerated” and that they “saw no effort to hide anything”.
A Pentagon spokesman told Politico that the staff of the transition team “are not government officials and therefore are limited to some extent to what they can receive”, explaining that being part of such a team “is not a license for access confidential, privileged or classified government information. “
When Biden’s transition team first raised concerns in December, then-acting defense secretary Chris Miller said he was committed to meeting departmental transition obligations. “This is what our nation expects and the DoD will deliver AS I ALWAYS DID,” he wrote in a statement.
Miller’s last day at the Pentagon was Wednesday and, according to Politico, the Biden government denied him office space and resources to transition from his position at the last minute.