The initial start of the requirements of The Presidential Transition Act is a year before the election. Six months before the presidential election, teams are set up in each agency to be able to handle the change of power from one president to another.
The General Services Administration is a critical part in this. It has to provide office space, personnel, equipment and everything necessary down to postage. GSA provides funding for training of new appointees.
The FBI has to do background checks on all high level appointees, secretaries and under-secretaries.
The President-Elect has to have intelligence briefing and be apprised of situations where armed response may be necessary.
There's a lot about who, when, where, and why the General Services Administration provides services and when intelligence briefings are done, but October 1st was the deadline for Trump to come up with his ethics plans, whether he eventually won or not. This is the part of the Presidential Transition Act, or PTA, that Elizabeth Warren is furious about.
Trump was supposed to provide a Memo Of Understanding to the GSA pledging not to hire individuals with conflicts of interest to assist in the transition.
Trump will be sworn in whether or not he complies, but non compliance will stall and disrupt the transition process.
Withou the memo, he doesn't get Federal funding which amounted to roughly $10 million.
An article on The New Republic said Trump could get big donations from his inauguration committee. No, he can't.
If he accepts private money it has to go through a 501(c)(4) that is separate from the campaign committee with a $5,000 limit from individual donors, and contributors have to be disclosed to the GSA.
Trump hasn't done any of this, or disclosed it if he has. I can't see why Trump would be worried about disclosing these small donors, but he never wants anybody ever looking at his finances, no matter for what purpose.
We still don't know what happened to the $250 million he raised after Jan. 6th to fight legal battles to change the election results. It was collected for the Election Defense Fund, which doesn't exist. Supposedly it went to the Save America PAC, but that was never followed up by the Federal Election Commission or law enforcement.
Trump has also failed to submit security clearance requests for his nominations. Trump has said he will hand out security clearances without FBI vetting. Is it any wonder that Elizabeth Warren is angry?
We can all guess why Trump doesn't want to have the FBI do investigations on his nominees. First one who wouldn't pass would be Matt Gaetz. So this is the second part of why Trump wants to have recess appointments done without the Senate investigation and confirmation process.
Sen. John Thune is replacing Mitch McConnell, not Donald Trump's choice of Rick Scott. Thune has already said he will support Trump's agenda. But that was before Matt Gaetz was announced as the nomination for attorney general. Many Senators, both Republican and Democrat, have said that they want the House Ethics Committee report on Gaetz. Nobody seems to be going along with Trump's idea of recess appointments, though Thune hasn't ruled it out. The thing is, Chuck Schumer is still in charge of the Senate until Jan. 3rd.
A Supreme Court ruling in 2014 said that the Senate had to be in recess for 10 days before recess appointments could be made. Pro-forma sessions can be done with a single Senator opening and closing the Senate without conducting any legislative business. This was designed to stop the practice of recess appointments.
Trump could force the issue also by demanding that both houses adjourn, which is allowed to do under extraordinary circumstances when the House and the Senate disagree on adjournment. The problem for Trump is that he's not president yet and won't be until January 20th.
So far, Trump is breaking every rule in the book for the presidential transition to go smoothly. Are we surprised? He made it difficult for Biden in his transition to president, even before Jan. 6th, and didn't even show up at his inauguration. My biggest question is if Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama and Biden will all show up at Trump's inauguration. It would serve Trump right if they ignored him. But they're bigger than the little man, and have a different view of courtesy.
