The Trump administration blocked Biden and his transition team from meeting with Pentagon-controlled intelligence agencies
Reuters
- The Trump administration has prevented President-elect Joe Biden's transition team from meeting with leaders at several US intelligence agencies, the Washington Post reported.
- Biden's team has reportedly not yet been able to meet with officials at agencies including the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency — both of which are controlled by the Pentagon.
- The Pentagon has denied any efforts to stifle the team's smooth transition period and said that requested meetings could take place as early as next week.
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The Trump administration blocked President-elect Joe Biden's transition team from meeting with several US intelligence agencies controlled by the Pentagon this week, according to a report by the Washington Post.
Biden's team has reportedly not yet met with leaders at intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, current and former US officials told the Post.
The Pentagon runs both these military spy agencies.
Biden's Agency Review Team was meant to meet the various defense intelligence agencies earlier this week. Still, the Pentagon said that there would be no engagements until the team had submitted questions in advance and listed the names of the people with whom it wanted to meet with, one former official told CNN.
Their requests would then have to be reviewed by the Defense Department's general counsel Kash Patel, who is widely seen as a Trump loyalist, appointed to lead the Pentagon's transition last month.
"That's a big FU from Defense to the incoming intelligence community transition team," the former official told CNN.
The slow-down comes even though the General Services Administration permitted federal agency officials to meet with Biden's team on November 23 after they were unable to meet with government staffers for days.
President-elect Biden's Agency Review Team has also been attending other meetings with leaders at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA, both of which are independent of the Defense Department.
The Pentagon has denied any efforts to stifle the President-elect's team's smooth transition period.
A spokesperson for the Defense Department, Sue Gough, told the Post on Friday that the Biden team "has not been denied any access" and said the requested meetings could occur as early as next week.
"The visits are tentatively scheduled for early next week," Gough also confirmed to The Hill.
Business Insider has reached out to Biden's team to confirm if the meetings were scheduled.
Next week, the Biden administration will have waited more than a month to have meaningful contact with intelligence agencies and be granted full access to intelligence information.
Meanwhile, Trump has continued to purge senior Pentagon officials, replacing them with more loyalists, including a retired general and Fox News commentator Anthony Tata and former White House National Security Council official Ezra Cohen-Watnic.
Last week, a retired Navy admiral and formerly the top US military officer, Mike Mullen, told NBC that he was "very concerned" about the "Trump loyalists who have now gone to work in the Pentagon."
Read more:
- Former top admiral alarmed by Pentagon purge says Trump still has time to do something 'really destructive'
- The Trump administration quietly pushed out nearly a dozen prominent defense advisors after its Pentagon leadership purge
- Trump administration pushes out more leading defense advisors as the Pentagon purge continues
- Trump loyalist put in top Pentagon post after purge 2 weeks ago now leads the transition to incoming Biden administration