Susan Rice: National Security at Risk Over Trump Administration's Denials

The Trump administration's refusal to meet with Joe Biden's transition team is putting the United States' "national security at risk," former National Security Adviser Susan Rice wrote in an opinion piece.

"The Biden-Harris agency review teams are constituted but have been denied access to every element of the executive branch," Rice wrote Friday in The New York Times. "Vital exchanges of information and expertise that would help combat COVID-19 and jump-start the economy remain stalled."

Rice added, "without access to critical threat information, no incoming team can counter what it can't see coming."

But instead of bringing about a "responsible, democratic" transition, President Donald Trump and other Republicans are busy creating doubts about Biden's election, and the president "appears determined to take a final wrecking ball to our democracy and national security on his inevitable way out the door," Rice said.

She pointed out, when Trump was going through his own transition period in 2016, she spent more than 12 hours advising his then-incoming national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and other White House officials met with their incoming counterparts. 

This, added to President Barack Obama's two-hour meeting with Trump, "proved to be the sum total of the 2016 national security transition at the highest levels," Rice said.

But even then, Trump's incoming Cabinet "was apparently told not to meet with their Obama counterparts in their respective departments, and most did not do so."

Her remarks came after reports General Services Administration head Emily Murphy, a Trump appointee, is refusing to sign off on an ascertainment that would release Biden's $6.3 million share of nearly $10 million in transition resources or to give his team access to agency officials and information.

Meanwhile, several federal agencies have reportedly been told to refuse cooperation with Biden's team until the GSA team certifies the election results.

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