Washington: The transition team of US President-elect Donald Trump officially signed a memorandum of understanding with the White House, enabling him to begin his official transition to power. The agreement was finalized on Tuesday, after several weeks of delay, according to the new chief of staff.
The move will allow Trump’s team to coordinate directly with federal agencies and access documents. The unusual delay in signing the agreement after the November 5 elections has raised concerns among some critics about potential snags in government operations or conflicts of interest.
“This participation allows our intended Cabinet nominees to begin critical preparations, including deploying landing teams to every department and agency, and complete the orderly transition of power,” Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, said in a statement.
Trump, a Republican, will take office on January 20. His team had rejected pleas from Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration to quickly sign a memorandum of understanding and objected to some elements of a traditional transitional agreement, according to the White House.
Under the agreement signed Tuesday, Trump’s team avoided signing a government ethics pledge, saying it had its own ethics plan that “meets staff requirements for a smooth transition into the Trump administration.”
A separate ethics pledge was later posted on the General Services Administration’s website. It included promises that members of the transition team would avoid conflicts of interest, protect confidential information, and would recuse themselves from participating in any matter if they had engaged in lobbying on the issue in the past 12 months.
However, it did not include a pledge that Trump would avoid conflicts of interest or that he would only hold “non-conflicting assets,” promises contained in the most common agreement signed by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
Trump owns an estimated $3.76 billion stake in Trump Media and Technology Group, which runs his Truth Social platform, as well as stakes in cryptocurrency businesses, real estate, and several foreign deals.
The family real estate company, now largely run by Trump’s son Eric, owns a portfolio of hotels, golf courses, resorts, office space in New York City, retail operations and condominiums.
Trump’s pledge also did not include a promise to protect whistleblowers on his transition team, a promise contained in Harris’ pledge.
Security approvals
Separately, the Trump transition team has not concluded a memorandum of understanding with the Justice Department to allow the FBI to conduct background checks on candidates, nor has it sent the FBI the names of potential national security personnel who would have access to classified information. Information.
A White House official said that although the Justice Department agreement has not been signed, progress has been made toward such an agreement.
Circumventing background checks would break a long-standing rule in Washington, but the president has the ultimate authority to nominate and select background checks.
The transition process said on Tuesday that it already includes security and information protections in place, “which means we will not need additional government and bureaucratic oversight.”
Trump’s team also broke with tradition and did not sign an agreement with the General Services Administration that would provide the use of office space. The team said it did not want to waste taxpayer money using government offices.
White House spokeswoman Saloni Sharma said that the Biden administration did not agree with the Trump team’s decision to abandon the signing of some usual agreements, but the White House will move forward with the transition process to avoid further delay.
Trump’s team said his move would use private financing rather than government money to pay for the move. The team said donors to the transition will be disclosed to the public.