Published on: November 14, 2024
The Trump administration still has not signed important memorandums of understanding (MOUs) such as the Presidential Transition Ethics Agreement. This MOU is legally required for presidents to sign to create peaceful transfers of power between opposing presidents.
Signing it grants Trump’s administration cybersecurity protections from the federal government. Refusing to sign it would put his administration at a greater risk of cyber attack, according to officials.
“It’s the government-in-waiting, and foreign actors would be, presumably, trying to get access to things,” a transition official who worked with Trump in 2016 said. “It’s not the government, it’s outside the government. There’s only one president at a time. What the transition after the election does is it builds the new administration, like in a staging platform, so that it’s ready to sort of flip a switch on Jan. 20.”
The same transition official stated that Trump’s team signed the MOU after he won the 2016 presidency, due to its importance in protecting incoming administration from foreign threats.
The Biden administration made a historic push in improving both the White House and the country’s cybersecurity defenses. Because of this, he’s keeping communications open.
Trump supporters see the situation differently, claiming that signing the MOU isn’t about cybersecurity.
“They’re freaking out because they can’t place their moles within the transition team to try to figure out what Donald Trump is doing, so that they can spin up their media propaganda machines, and try to preempt and undermine the work that we are doing to bring great patriots together to actually fix the government,” writes Tulsi Gabbard.
Not every politician shares this sentiment.
“Donald Trump and his transition team are already breaking the law. I would know because I wrote the law. Incoming presidents are required to prevent conflicts of interest and sign an ethics agreement. This is what illegal corruption looks like,” states Elizabeth Warren.