Republican Chair of Senate Intelligence Committee calls on @GSAEmily to do the right thing and start access for Biden #TransitionNow
@marcorubio: "We need to have that contingency in place."
Large risks to US national security. Here's what the 9/11 Commission said....
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2. The 9/11 Commission found that delay in 2000 transition may have contributed to failure to stop terrorist attacks.
Specifically identified: "loss of time hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees"
3. The 9/11 Commission Report then provided strong recommendations for transition work immediately after the general election.
These are the very tools the @USGSA is now denying Biden transition and the American public.
From the Report:
4. Senator @marcorubio is also correct on this subtle but important point. He says:
“I don’t think allowing the GSA to move forward on some of the transition work prejudices in any way any of the legal claims the president intends to make.”
5. Republican colleagues can also help move the ball forward.
Note how @SenatorCollins refers to Biden as the "apparent" winner. That's the language of Presidential Transition Act. Others can say the same, and bolster @GSAEmily to do the right thing.
6. Letter from nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition by luminaires from previous Republican and Democratic administrations.
“While there will be legal disputes requiring adjudication, the outcome is sufficiently clear that the transition process must now begin. ..."
7. Letter continues:
“We urge the Trump administration to immediately begin the post-election transition process and the Biden team to take full advantage of the resources available under the Presidential Transition Act.”
Josh Bolten
Michael Leavitt
Mack McLarty
Penny Pritzker
8. The Center for Presidential Transition letter was first obtained and published thanks to @AlxThomp@Politico in this report:
Here's the likely cockamamie strategy and why it should be doomed to fail.
Trump-Giuliani-Levin strategy:
Step 1: Try to delegitimize vote count in PA and elsewhere — no matter how much thinking people know their allegations are really bonkers.
Step 2: Try to gin up public outrage that resonates with the Trump base — even if the outrage is internally contradictory ('count the vote' in AZ, 'stop the count' in PA) and based on lies.
Step 3: When race is PROPERLY called for Biden in PA and elsewhere, the Levin cabal tries to put immense pressure (via Trump's outraged base) on PA Republican Legislature to select Trump electors on the (false) claim that the vote count was fraudulent
My former boss—Robert S. Taylor, who served as Acting General Counsel at Department of Defense—with a strong warning to federal employees across departments and agencies.
2. Two laws — Hatch Act and Antideficiency Act — can impose stiff penalties (including prison time) for federal employees who illegally undermine the election.
The latter could apply to federal actions that use funds that have not been appropriated by Congress for that purpose.
3. "Every federal employee should assume that if he or she carries out an activity intended to impair or impede the election... their conduct will be judged by people deeply upset over the effort to entrench a President viewed as a threat to the very foundations of our democracy"
3. Report on Esper's weak response to Congress on question of using military in the election (contrasted with General Milley's solid response to Congress).
"Our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs" nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
2. "The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000."
3. The USA has "failed at almost every step. We had ample warning....
The United States came into this crisis with enormous advantages. Along with tremendous manufacturing capacity, we have a biomedical research system that is the envy of the world. We have enormous expertise..."