Allies of President-elect Donald Trump are debating whether he should forgo using the federal government to help fund the process of transitioning his staff into the White House.
After the major parties select their nominees at their respective conventions, the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 authorizes the General Services Administration to provide major candidates with office space, equipment, administrative support, and other funds and services to prepare for a possible transition to the White House. However, some conservatives believe Trump should reject these funds and pay for the transition himself, citing reports that the GSA abused this power in 2016 to spy on Trump’s campaign.
“Biden agency officials are hostile to Mr. Trump, so GSA-sponsored briefings from them are of limited value. Instead, the transition team should rely on annual budget submissions, which contain detailed information on agency operations. That would be supplemented by briefings arranged by the transition team featuring trusted prior or current officials,” Daniel Huff, a lawyer who previously served in the Trump White House, wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. “Mr. Trump’s critics will say that by shunning General Services Administration’s support, he is skirting oversight, but the retort is simple: The trust is gone.”
Huff cited a 2020 Senate report that showed an agreement between the GSA and the 2016 Trump campaign not to retain transition records was violated by the federal agency. Instead, GSA officials “decided to preserve and disclose those records to various investigative entities” investigating the then-president without informing his team, according to the report.
Specifically, Huff said the GSA turned over records to special counsel Robert Mueller without any subpoena or warrant served, and the agency also “contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ask if it should preserve the records despite the explicit terms of the agreement outlining the opposite.”
“Given this history, it would be foolish for the Trump team to trust government transition resources again,” Huff said.
Managing the process himself would be expensive but not entirely unfeasible. The transition process cost Trump $16 million in 2016, including funds from both the GSA and privately raised funds. That sum could be reached with the help of some of Trump’s most wealthy supporters, such as Elon Musk.
Several Trump allies seem to think it’s a good idea, highlighting concerns the federal government has weaponized against the former president and other Trump-aligned conservatives.
“I got to tell you, if I’m Trump and the people around him, I am skeptical of everyone in the government,” Stu Sandler, a longtime GOP consultant and onetime political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “This is a government that wrongly tried to prosecute him multiple times at multiple levels. So I would be a little hesitant to engage before I was in the White House.”
“President Trump should do whatever the hell he feels comfortable doing as he’s got the American people in his court,” Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) also told the Washington Examiner.
Other GOP strategists suggested that while Trump’s team can trust the Biden administration to operate in good faith, they warned against “an underbelly of government” made up of the “unelected bureaucracy.” That conglomerate of people, some say, is insitutionally against Trump.
“I think that bureaucracy is openly anti-Trump and has been since 2016, and I think that’s what Trump has to make his decisions based on,” said Matt Dole, a Republican political consultant based in Ohio. “If he can fund the transition through donations and support and whatever resources he has, he should absolutely avoid all of the threats that we’ve discussed: lawfare and spying and all of those things.”
But not all those in Trump’s circles believe it’s the best idea to circumvent the government altogether.
Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, expressed concerns about forgoing support from the GSA and that it could prevent staff from working with agency officials.
“In 2017, 2016, we used GSA office space, which has always been the protocol,” Lewandowski told the Washington Examiner. “He may say he doesn’t want to do that, but bureaucrats have nothing to do with the transition team, nothing.
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It’s not clear whether Trump or his team is considering working independently from the GSA, and his campaign indicated the president-elect would continue his work with the Biden administration to ensure a peaceful transfer.
“The Trump-Vance transition lawyers continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act,” Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump-Vance transition, told the Washington Examiner. “We will update you once a decision is made.”