Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Biden-Harris Transition Thread

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #61
    Originally posted by Red Team View Post

    You mean the "allies" that attacked American positions with its mercenaries and put out bounties on the heads of American troops?
    Yep, those allies. Not the ones that Trump fell in love with.
    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

    Comment


    • #62
      Gosh,let put it very politely.1.Israel ceased giving too many details to US decades ago.
      2.Intel shared or disseminated as a rule does not contain enough details for even people in the same agency to guess the source.
      3.Unless a CINC does not specifically asks for details about a source,he is not provided with raw information.He only gets a briefing which is composed by the intel analysts.He generally is too busy to bother with tens of thousands of details occuring daily in the intel world.
      4.Intel needs to be corroborated and confirmed.Just a dude inside somewhere saying something isn’t intel.One of the reasons raw information is not passed as such.
      5.Intel pros don’t talk to media except as part of influention ops.
      6.If 5 is false in this case one is dumb/unprofessional.The source or the reader who buys this crap in 2020,during election drama ongoing.
      7.If all the above are false,then there is no real intel leak,but a part of intel games between all the parties involved.Which still make the story false.
      Those who know don't speak
      He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

      Comment


      • #63
        Originally posted by Mihais View Post
        Gosh,let put it very politely.1.Israel ceased giving too many details to US decades ago.
        2.Intel shared or disseminated as a rule does not contain enough details for even people in the same agency to guess the source.
        3.Unless a CINC does not specifically asks for details about a source,he is not provided with raw information.He only gets a briefing which is composed by the intel analysts.He generally is too busy to bother with tens of thousands of details occuring daily in the intel world.
        4.Intel needs to be corroborated and confirmed.Just a dude inside somewhere saying something isn’t intel.One of the reasons raw information is not passed as such.
        5.Intel pros don’t talk to media except as part of influention ops.
        6.If 5 is false in this case one is dumb/unprofessional.The source or the reader who buys this crap in 2020,during election drama ongoing.
        7.If all the above are false,then there is no real intel leak,but a part of intel games between all the parties involved.Which still make the story false.
        1. Neither you nor I are aware of what intelligence information Israel shares with the US
        2. Neither you nor I are aware of how carefully the intelligence information that Donald Trump passed on to Russian was protected
        3. This is the only point that is partially true: Trump is generally too busy, not with "tens of thousands of details occuring daily in the intel world" but rather with watching TV, Tweeting and golfing.
        4. Donald Trump isn't "just some dude". He's the President of the United States.
        5. I have no idea what point you're trying to make here, as it pertains to the subject at hand: Donald Trump passing classified information to the Russians. It has exact zero to do with the media
        6. Correct, Donald Trump is both dumb and unprofessional. Also, this event occurred 2017. Nobody has said anything about it involving the 2020 election.
        7. No, it's all part of Donald Trump and his repeated instances of blabbing national secrets, something that, in his own words, he has "the absolute right to do"

        Unless of course you're under the delusion that Donald Trump has ever been discreet about other people's secrets or that he's ever felt bound by rules or laws?
        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

        Comment


        • #64
          Originally posted by Mihais View Post
          Gosh,let put it very politely.1.Israel ceased giving too many details to US decades ago.
          2.Intel shared or disseminated as a rule does not contain enough details for even people in the same agency to guess the source.
          3.Unless a CINC does not specifically asks for details about a source,he is not provided with raw information.He only gets a briefing which is composed by the intel analysts.He generally is too busy to bother with tens of thousands of details occuring daily in the intel world.
          4.Intel needs to be corroborated and confirmed.Just a dude inside somewhere saying something isn’t intel.One of the reasons raw information is not passed as such.
          5.Intel pros don’t talk to media except as part of influention ops.
          6.If 5 is false in this case one is dumb/unprofessional.The source or the reader who buys this crap in 2020,during election drama ongoing.
          7.If all the above are false,then there is no real intel leak,but a part of intel games between all the parties involved.Which still make the story false.
          Trump had no business even mentioning an Israeli asset in the field.

          Comment


          • #65
            Trump loyalist blocking some Pentagon officials from helping Biden transition

            WASHINGTON — A Trump loyalist who was recently appointed as Pentagon chief of staff is controlling the Biden transition's team access to Pentagon officials, even blocking some career officials and experts from giving information about key defense issues to the transition team and telling political appointees to take the lead instead, say two current and two former U.S. officials.

            In some instances, the chief of staff, Kash Patel, who was assigned to the Pentagon after last month's election, has recast policy descriptions to include content that reflects favorably on Trump's policies before the information is shared with the Biden transition, two of the officials said.

            "He told everybody we're not going to cooperate with the transition team," one of the former officials said of Patel, and he has "put a lot of restrictions on it."

            Patel made it clear early in the process that senior political officials would attend transition team meetings and briefings dealing with significant policy issues, the officials said, which is having a chilling effect on the information being shared with the Biden team.

            While mundane issues and requests for information from the Biden team are tasked out to Pentagon policy experts, the two current officials and one former official said some significant or time-sensitive policies — such as those involving Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea — are being handled by political appointees, some of whom Trump recently installed, or not answered at all.

            Historically, career civilians and military officials prepare many of the briefing documents and information during a transition, according to officials who have participated in past transitions.

            Most requests for information from the Biden transition team go to Tom Muir, director of Washington Headquarters Services and senior civilian transition director, a current official said. Muir then briefs Patel, who weighs in on requests for interviews and which staffers will handle requests for information.

            Some briefing documents have gone through Patel before going to the transition team, and he has put a political spin on some information and completely withheld it in other cases, according to the current and former officials.

            "This has been more politicized than previous transitions," one official said. "Patel is controlling the information flow."


            In some cases, according to the two current officials, the career officials have been completely cut out of the process, with political appointees taking the lead rather than the subject matter experts who handle the issues.

            Pentagon officials have provided the Biden Agency Review Team (ART) with some briefing documents, according to a senior defense official and one of the former defense officials. In past years transition teams received binders, but this year the Pentagon has delivered iPads with information, the officials said.

            In a statement released after this story first posted, Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller wrote, “The DoD and its transition leadership are fully cooperating with the Biden transition team, placing national security and the protection of the American people at the forefront of any and all discussions.”

            Trump loyalists
            Last week, a senior defense official said that Patel was leading the transition efforts for the Pentagon, just two weeks after Patel arrived in the Pentagon after being named chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller.

            Three other Trump loyalists have also taken over powerful Pentagon positions since the Nov. 3 election, including retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, who is now performing the duties of the undersecretary of defense for policy; Ezra Cohen-Watnick, now the acting undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security; and retired Army Col. Doug Macgregor, now senior adviser to Acting Secretary Miller.

            Members of the Biden ART have asked to speak with various political appointees, career civilians, and military officials, a defense official said. A senior defense official said that “Kash has not been selecting individuals to do meetings,” but the official did acknowledge that the Pentagon’s transition team does add more people to meetings “to make sure we have the appropriate people there.” The official said it’s to ensure they provide as much information as possible.

            Patel has mandated that requests from the transition team to speak with career civilians or military officials be approved by either Patel or Muir, also a political appointee, before they can proceed, according to two current U.S. officials. So far most requests have been approved, but the officials say that they have not responded to all requests.

            In a statement, a Pentagon spokesperson said, “We continue to work closely with the DoD ART and other Agency Review Teams to schedule requested by-name interviews of DoD leadership, both political appointees and career civil servants. We have provided thousands of pages of documents, including classified materials, for their review and follow-on questions, in accordance with statute, policies, and the Memorandum of Understanding between the White House and the Biden-Harris Transition Team — and we will be providing more as appropriate.”

            A senior defense official said the Pentagon’s transition team facilitated 21 interviews this week and has 47 more scheduled for next week, including meetings with the regional combatant commanders and the chiefs of the military services. The official said they had five meetings about Covid-19 this week, and had other meetings about personnel and readiness and other policy issues. The Pentagon has provided the Biden transition team with more than 1,500 pages of information via Microsoft tablets, the official said.

            The Biden transition team declined to comment.

            Patel, who was named as Pentagon chief of staff on Nov. 10, formerly worked in the Trump administration at the National Security Council. He also served as an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who worked on the contentious House investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
            __________
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

            Comment


            • #66
              The Bidens are compromised by foreign powers.
              https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/med...port_FINAL.pdf

              Comment


              • #67
                Originally posted by surfgun View Post
                The Bidens are compromised by foreign powers.
                https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/med...port_FINAL.pdf
                That's an 87 page document. Think you could muster up the effort that it takes to copy/paste the relevant passages that you think support your assertion, for a change?
                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                Comment


                • #68
                  At the Inauguration Hunter should sit in the background with an open laptop.....
                  “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                  Mark Twain

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Originally posted by TopHatter View Post

                    That's an 87 page document. Think you could muster up the effort that it takes to copy/paste the relevant passages that you think support your assertion, for a change?
                    The executive summary on pages 3 through 6 would be a good place to start.

                    The copy/paste in the quoted section below produced a long poorly formatted single paragraph in need of more effort. I don't have time to fix that, but the original is well formated, and is available from the link posted earlier by surfgun.

                    I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In late 2013 and into 2014, mass protests erupted in Kyiv, Ukraine, demanding integration into western economies and an end to systemic corruption that had plagued the country. At least 82 people were killed during the protests, which culminated on Feb. 21 when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych abdicated by fleeing the country. Less than two months later, over the span of only 28 days, significant events involving the Bidens unfolded. On April 16, 2014, Vice President Biden met with his son’s business partner, Devon Archer, at the White House. Five days later, Vice President Biden visited Ukraine, and he soon after was described in the press as the “public face of the administration’s handling of Ukraine.” The day after his visit, on April 22, Archer joined the board of Burisma. Six days later, on April 28, British officials seized $23 million from the London bank accounts of Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Fourteen days later, on May 12, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, and over the course of the next several years, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were paid millions of dollars from a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch for their participation on the board. The 2014 protests in Kyiv came to be known as the Revolution of Dignity — a revolution against corruption in Ukraine. Following that revolution, Ukrainian political figures were desperate for U.S. support. Zlochevsky would have made sure relevant Ukrainian officials were well aware of Hunter’s appointment to Burisma’s board as leverage. Hunter Biden’s position on the board created an immediate potential conflict of interest that would prove to be problematic for both U.S. and Ukrainian officials and would affect the implementation of Ukraine policy. The Chairmen’s investigation into potential conflicts of interest began in August 2019, with Chairman Grassley’s letter to the Department of Treasury regarding potential conflicts of interest with respect to Obama administration policy relating to the Henniges transaction.1 During the Obama administration, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved a transaction that gave control over Henniges, an American maker of anti-vibration technologies with military applications, to a Chinese government-owned aviation company and a China-based investment firm with established ties to the Chinese government. One of the companies involved in the Henniges transaction was a billion-dollar private investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). BHR was formed in November 2013 by a merger between the Chinese-government-linked firm Bohai Capital and a company named Rosemont Seneca Partners. Rosemont Seneca was formed in 2009 by Hunter Biden, the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, by Chris Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.2
                    Access to relevant documents and testimony has been persistently hampered by criminal investigations, impeachment proceedings, COVID-19, and several instances of obstructive behavior. Accordingly, this investigation has taken longer than it should have. The Chairmen’s efforts have always been driven by our belief that the public has the right to know about wrongdoing and conflicts of interest occurring within government, and especially those conflicts brought about by the actions of governmental officials. This is a good-government oversight investigation that relies on documents and testimony from U.S. agencies and officials, not a Russian disinformation campaign, as our Democratic colleagues have falsely stated. What the Chairmen discovered during the course of this investigation is that the Obama administration knew that Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board was problematic and did interfere in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine. Moreover, this investigation has illustrated the extent to which officials within the Obama administration ignored the glaring warning signs when the vice president’s son joined the board of a company owned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch. And, as will be discussed in later sections, Hunter Biden was not the only Biden who cashed in on Joe Biden’s vice presidency. This report not only details examples of extensive and complex financial transactions involving the Bidens, it also describes the quandary other U.S. governmental officials faced as they attempted to guide and support Ukraine’s anticorruption efforts. The Committees will continue to evaluate the information and evidence as it becomes available. Key Findings  In early 2015 the former Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, George Kent, raised concerns to officials in Vice President Joe Biden’s office about the perception of a conflict of interest with respect to Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board. Kent’s concerns went unaddressed, and in September 2016, he emphasized in an email to his colleagues, “Furthermore, the presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine.”  In October 2015, senior State Department official Amos Hochstein raised concerns with Vice President Biden, as well as with Hunter Biden, that Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board enabled Russian disinformation efforts and risked undermining U.S. policy in Ukraine.  Although Kent believed that Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board was awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anti-corruption agenda in Ukraine, the Committees are only aware of two individuals — Kent and former U.S. Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein — who raised concerns to Vice President Joe Biden (Hochstein) or his staff (Kent).  The awkwardness for Obama administration officials continued well past his presidency. Former Secretary of State John Kerry had knowledge of Hunter Biden’s role on
                    Burisma’s board, but when asked about it at a town hall event in Nashua, N.H. on Dec. 8, 2019, Kerry falsely said, “I had no knowledge about any of that. None. No.” Evidence to the contrary is detailed in Section V.  Former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland testified that confronting oligarchs would send an anticorruption message in Ukraine. Kent told the Committees that Zlochevsky was an “odious oligarch.” However, in December 2015, instead of following U.S. objectives of confronting oligarchs, Vice President Biden’s staff advised him to avoid commenting on Zlochevsky and recommended he say, “I’m not going to get into naming names or accusing individuals.”  Hunter Biden was serving on Burisma’s board (supposedly consulting on corporate governance and transparency) when Zlochevsky allegedly paid a $7 million bribe to officials serving under Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Vitaly Yarema, to “shut the case against Zlochevsky.” Kent testified that this bribe occurred in December 2014 (seven months after Hunter joined Burisma’s board), and, after learning about it, he and the Resident Legal Advisor reported this allegation to the FBI.  Hunter Biden was a U.S. Secret Service protectee from Jan. 29, 2009 to July 8, 2014. A day before his last trip as a protectee, Time published an article describing Burisma’s ramped up lobbying efforts to U.S. officials and Hunter’s involvement in Burisma’s board. Before ending his protective detail, Hunter Biden received Secret Service protection on trips to multiple foreign locations, including Moscow, Beijing, Doha, Paris, Seoul, Manila, Tokyo, Mexico City, Milan, Florence, Shanghai, Geneva, London, Dublin, Munich, Berlin, Bogota, Abu Dhabi, Nairobi, Hong Kong, Taipei, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Johannesburg, Brussels, Madrid, Mumbai and Lake Como.  Andrii Telizhenko, the Democrats’ personification of Russian disinformation, met with Obama administration officials, including Elisabeth Zentos, a member of Obama’s National Security Council, at least 10 times. A Democrat lobbying firm, Blue Star Strategies, contracted with Telizhenko from 2016 to 2017 and continued to request his assistance as recent as the summer of 2019. A recent news article detailed other extensive contacts between Telizhenko and Obama administration officials.  In addition to the over $4 million paid by Burisma for Hunter Biden’s and Archer’s board memberships, Hunter Biden, his family, and Archer received millions of dollars from foreign nationals with questionable backgrounds.  Archer received $142,300 from Kenges Rakishev of Kazakhstan, purportedly for a car, the same day Vice President Joe Biden appeared with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arsemy Yasenyuk and addressed Ukrainian legislators in Kyiv regarding Russia’s actions in Crimea.  Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow.  Hunter Biden opened a bank account with Gongwen Dong to fund a $100,000 global spending spree with James Biden and Sara Biden.  Hunter Biden had business associations with Ye Jianming, Gongwen Dong, and other Chinese nationals linked to the Communist government and the People’s Liberation Army. Those associations resulted in millions of dollars in cash flow.  Hunter Biden paid nonresident women who were nationals of Russia or other Eastern European countries and who appear to be linked to an “Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring.”
                    Last edited by JRT; 09 Dec 20,, 22:49.
                    .
                    .
                    .

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Originally posted by JRT View Post

                      The executive summary on pages 3 through 6 would be a good place to start.

                      The copy/paste in the quoted section below produced a long poorly formatted single paragraph in need of more effort. I don't have time to fix that, but the original is well formated, and is available from the link posted earlier by surfgun.
                      Basically tells us what we've already known for years.

                      But surfgun wants to spin it into "The entire Biden family is compromised by a foreign government", basically going according to the Trump script: "Accuse others of that which you yourself are guilty as hell of"
                      “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        Originally posted by surfgun View Post
                        The Bidens are compromised by foreign powers.
                        https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/med...port_FINAL.pdf
                        Don't hold your breath waiting for the impeachment proceedings, but you may see Joe Biden pardon his son.
                        Last edited by JRT; 09 Dec 20,, 23:00.
                        .
                        .
                        .

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          Originally posted by JRT View Post

                          Don't hold your breath waiting for the impeachment proceedings, but you may see Joe Biden pardon his son.
                          With the precedent that Trump has set, is setting and will set, that would be a minor footnote to the last 4 years or so.
                          “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                          Comment


                          • #73
                            Trump is warned not to destroy White House records before he leaves office

                            More than a dozen state attorneys general have warned Donald Trump’s administration to preserve presidential records, including Twitter posts, along with “emails from private servers” used for government communication and notes from conversations.

                            The group of Democratic attorneys general – led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is also pursuing an investigation into the president’s business and his associates – sent a letter to White House counsel Pat Cipollone on Wednesday urging the president to comply with the Presidential Records Act and Federal Records Act over concerns that the administration has sought to destroy records on its way out the door.

                            “The Trump Administration shouldn’t have to be told that they need to comply with the law and keep all records of official business, but the last four years have shown that the president needs to be constantly reminded what the law is and how he must comply with it,” Attorney General James said in a statement.

                            Fifteen states’ attorneys general – from Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Virginia, Washington and Washington DC – signed on to the letter.

                            Attorney General James specifically mentioned that Mr Trump’s Twitter posts, notes from conversations with Russian resident Vladimir Putin, and Ivanka Trump’s "private email server must be archived.”

                            “Every bit of this information belongs to the American people and the White House cannot deprive the public of this information,” she said.

                            The letter follows lawsuits and demands from watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which joined a lawsuit with the National Security Archive, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the American Historical Association.

                            CREW warned that the US faces “an increasing risk that historically valuable records of his presidency will be permanently lost in violation of records laws.”


                            The group said this month that the White House has effectively permitted the loss and subsequent destruction of presidential records by allowing White House personnel to capture and preserve only portions of electronic messages they send or receive on unofficial messaging accounts."

                            "This is part of a larger pattern of the President and the White House ignoring, if not flouting, their obligation to create and preserve records memorializing official actions and decisions,” CREW said in a statement.

                            The group’s executive director Noah Bookbinder said that “the American people deserve not only to know how their government is making important decisions, but to understand what was going on behind closed doors and what we could do better in the future."

                            The group has also requested communications between the National Archives and Records Administration “and any social media platform company, including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, Google, Skype, Slack, Signal and Parler” on the preservation of presidential records.

                            In a pair of 2017 memos, White House counsel reminded staff of “their obligation to preserve and maintain presidential records” and stressed that “willful destruction or concealment of federal records is a federal crime punishable by fines and imprisonment.”
                            ___________
                            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              Originally posted by Bloomberg

                              Pentagon Halts Briefings With Biden's Transition Team
                              Published on 18 December 2020



                              President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team criticized what Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller called “a holiday pause” in briefings to prepare for the new administration.

                              The halt announced on Friday came after the Defense Department said it was cooperating fully in the delayed transition that’s under way across the federal government with just over a month before Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

                              “We were concerned to learn this week about an abrupt halt” in cooperation, Yohannes Abraham, a Biden spokesman, said at a briefing on Friday. He said the move reflected “isolated resistance in some quarters, including from political appointees within the Department of Defense.”

                              Miller described the halt in cooperation in a statement as having been “mutually agreed upon,” but Abraham said there was no such agreement.
                              Axios, which reported on the move earlier, cited a defense official it didn’t identify as saying workers were feeling overwhelmed by the number of meetings.

                              Asked if the Pentagon was not being truthful in claiming a mutual agreement, transition spokeswoman Jen Psaki replied: “I don’t think we need to communicate that. I think you can make your own judgments.”

                              “As of today, we have supported 139 interviews sessions, more than 200 DoD personnel, 161 requests for information, and disclosed thousands of pages of non-public and classified documents, exceeding prior transitions,” Miller said in his statement. “At no time has the department canceled or declined any interview.”

                              President Donald Trump named Miller and other loyalists to top Defense Department jobs in acting roles after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper last month.

                              “No department is more pivotal to our national security than the Department of Defense, and a failure to work together could have consequences well beyond January,” Abrahams said, while acknowledging “constructive cooperation within many departments and agencies.”

                              .

                              ...

                              Last edited by JRT; 18 Dec 20,, 22:05.
                              .
                              .
                              .

                              Comment


                              • #75
                                ‘We have encountered roadblocks’: Biden rips Pentagon over transition foot-dragging
                                The president-elect said adversaries might look to exploit a “window of confusion” during the change of administrations.


                                President-elect Joe Biden on Monday called out political appointees at the Defense Department, saying they were putting up “roadblocks” and keeping his transition team at bay with less than a month until he becomes commander in chief.

                                “Right now we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas,” Biden said in Delaware after a briefing with members of his national security team. “It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.”

                                Biden said that what he sees as foot-dragging on the part of the Trump administration is particularly galling in light of the recently disclosed massive cyberattack that hit much of the federal government and other global threats. Biden also said the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville, Tenn., underscored the importance of the issue.

                                “We need to make sure that nothing is lost in the hand-off between administrations,” the president-elect said. “We need full visibility into the budget planning under way at the Defense Department and other agencies in order to avoid any window of confusion or catch-up that our adversaries may try to exploit.”

                                Biden reiterated concerns that the Pentagon’s political leadership, made up of newly installed Trump loyalists, is obstructing the normal transition process. In particular, Biden said his team needed “full visibility” into the Pentagon’s budget planning, noting that adversaries might look to exploit a “window of confusion” during the change of administrations.

                                “We have encountered roadblocks from the political leadership at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget,” he said.

                                Biden’s comments re-upped tensions with the Pentagon just over a week after defense officials abruptly canceled a series of meetings with the transition that had been scheduled for Dec. 18. Defense officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the two teams had agreed on a two-week holiday pause and that the meetings would resume in the new year, but the Biden transition executive director, Yohannes Abraham, rebutted that claim.

                                The Pentagon has continued to “deny and delay” meetings with Biden’s agency review team members, a transition official told POLITICO on Monday after the president-elect’s remarks, noting that the two sides had made “no substantial progress” since the issue first came to light.

                                "As the President-elect alluded to, no Department is more pivotal to our national security than the Department of Defense, and an unwillingness to work together could have consequences well beyond January 20th," the official said.

                                Biden on Monday made a point to differentiate the chilly reception his team has received from officials at the Pentagon, and to a lesser extent OMB, from other parts of the federal government apparatus.

                                “For some agencies, our teams received exemplary cooperation from the career staff in those agencies,” Biden said. “From others — most notably the Department of Defense — we encountered obstruction from the political leadership of that department.”

                                The president-elect has recently stepped up his criticism of the Trump administration’s handling of the transfer of power, which has been complicated by the outgoing president’s refusal to accept his electoral defeat to Biden and his legally dubious attempts to stay in office by subverting the will of the American electorate.

                                Some administration officials, wary of repercussions from the president or his loyalists, have been wary of seeming too eager to assist with the transfer of power and have at times received contradictory messages from the White House about preparing for the end stages of the current administration.

                                Biden also seemed to try to manage expectations of what his administration would be able to do from the get-go in unwinding policies initiated under Trump, including on immigration and America’s role on the international stage.

                                “These are hard issues, and the current administration has made them much harder by working to erode our capacity,” Biden said. “It’s going to take time to rebuild that capacity.”

                                He said that the U.S. would have to repair relationships with other countries that were strained under Trump’s America First philosophy, but that doing so was necessary to counter China’s growing political influence abroad.

                                “We’re stronger and more effective when we’re flanked by nations that share our vision of the future of our world,” Biden said. “That’s how we multiply the impact of our efforts and make the efforts more sustainable.”
                                ________
                                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X