President-elect Joe Biden still hasn’t been recognized as the election winner by the General Services Administration because the administrator, Emily Murphy, has not “ascertained” that he won the election.
Biden did win. The race was called over a week ago. But until Murphy and the GSA certify the win—as Walter M. Shaub Jr. writes in the New York Review of Books—Biden is held back from receiving “$6.3 million dollars to the team, which is funded by public and private money; a loan of expanded federal office space and equipment; access to government agencies that will begin sharing information and records about ongoing activities, plans and vulnerabilities; national security briefings for the president; and other support.”
That could, you’d think, be helpful for a president walking into office as he deals with a massive economic crisis and a deadly pandemic. Even the most callous partisan should realize that. But Murphy has not budged. What makes her lack of action even scummier is that, as ABC News reported, Murphy seems to have personally ascertained that the Trump administration is indeed coming to an end:
Emily Murphy, head of the GSA, recently sent that message to an associate inquiring about employment opportunities in 2021, a move that some in Washington interpreted as at least tacitly acknowledging that the current administration soon will be gone.
Got it? When it helps Republicans, Biden won. But when it helps Biden—and the country—get ready to do the job, let Trump keep ranting.
Congressional Democrats are none too pleased:
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, insisted that Murphy reaching out privately about future employment opportunities “exposes the hypocrisy” of the Trump administration’s position.
“Here’s somebody who refuses to sign the letter of transition but is self-dealing at the same time,” he told ABC News. “That’s a de facto recognition that there’s an incoming administration, and it’s not called Trump—it’s called Biden.”
President-elect Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States in 65 days.
