Staffers in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services say they were told to make it harder for President-elect Joe Biden to transition into his role.
After staffers spoke on the internal message they received, the agency’s secretary Alex Azar released a statement: “We’ve made it very clear that when General Service Association (GSA) makes a determination, we will ensure complete, cooperative professional transitions and planning,” Azar said at a briefing. “We follow the guidance. We’re about getting vaccines and therapeutics invented and get the clinical trial data, and saving lives here. That’s where our focus is as we go forward with our efforts.”
Azar was referring to “ascertainment,” a routine recognition by the GSA in the face of a clear presidential victory that would allow the official transition to begin, but sources close to the situation claim Trump’s appointee that leads the GSA is working to interpret ambiguous guidelines to delay the election results.
Donald Trump and his administration are pulling out all stops to make it harder for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to take over the president and vice president role by refusing to cooperate. The timing of their refusal to move aside is tragic, considering the nation is struggling to combat the deadly coronavirus. Biden and his health officials would like to move forward to get to work on a possible vaccine distribution plan, Yahoo News reports.
But members of Trump’s HHS were told to not correspond with Biden’s team when contacted, as well as flag any attempt at communications they receive and send it up the totem pole to higher-level officials.
Normally, a formal and official transition would have started by now, but this is an unprecedented situation when it comes to election results and a predecessor like Trump.
Apparently, Trump and his team are still banking on the long-shot legal cases they’ve started in key ground states. As Trump only seems to care about his slim chances at a second term, Biden warns the public that many more people may die under Trump’s immaturity to concede.
