Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller has ordered the Pentagon to cease briefing Joe Biden and his transition team, canceling several meetings Thursday night, Axios reports.
A senior Defense Department official downplayed the order as a "simple delay of the last few scheduled meetings until after the new year" in a statement to Axios.
"We had fewer than two dozen remaining meetings on the schedule today and next week ... the DoD staff working the meetings were overwhelmed by the number of meetings," the official added.
"These same senior leaders needed to do their day jobs and were being consumed by transition activities. ... With the holidays we are taking a knee for two weeks. We are still committed to a productive transition."
The order comes after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned that "the Intelligence Community will not meet the December 18 deadline, set by Executive Order and Congress to submit the IC's classified assessment on foreign threats to the 2020 U.S. elections. The IC has received relevant reporting since the election and a number of agencies have not finished coordinating on the product."
The intelligence community is also currently dealing with a reportedly massive cyber attack targeting several federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Homeland Security, and Commerce, as well as the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.