President-elect Joe Biden said Monday that his transition team has encountered “roadblocks” and “obstruction” from Trump administration leaders at key agencies, hampering the upcoming administration’s efforts to prepare for the presidency.
But one of those heads of the agency, acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, pushed back on Biden’s criticism and marked the latest feud between President Donald Trump’s Pentagon and the president-elect.
“The truth is, many of the agencies critical to our security have suffered tremendous damage,” Biden said during comments in Delaware after briefing his national security and foreign policy review teams.
“Many of them have been eroded in personnel, capacity and morale. Policy processes have been atrophied or sidelined,” he said.
Biden, who will take office in less than a month, mentioned in his speech the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget.
“Our team has received exemplary cooperation from some agencies,” said Biden. “From others, especially the Department of Defense, we have been opposed by the political leadership of that department.”
He later added, “We have run into obstacles from the political leadership at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget. At this point, we are simply not getting all the information we need from the outgoing administration of important national security. areas. “
“It’s nothing short of irresponsibility in my opinion,” said Biden.
In a statement later Monday, Acting Chief of Defense Miller defended his agency’s coordination with Biden’s team.
“The Department of Defense conducted 164 interviews with more than 400 officials and provided more than 5,000 pages of documents – far more than initially requested by Biden’s transition team,” Miller’s statement said.
That statement includes a bulleted list of ‘transition facts’, noting that all interviews with the transition team are being conducted virtually for the first time in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
The agency’s efforts “already exceed those of recent administrations by more than three weeks to go,” Miller said, “and we will continue to schedule additional meetings for the remainder of the transition and answer any requests for information that are within our reach.”
Department of Defense officials, the statement added, “have worked with the utmost professionalism to support transition activities in a short timeframe and will continue to do so in a transparent and collegial manner that upholds the best traditions of the Department. The American people expect nothing less and that is what I remain committed to. ”
The Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Biden applauded his agency’s review teams for the “excellent job” despite the pandemic and the delays in receiving federal funding from Trump’s General Services Administration. Those obstacles came as the president refused to give in to Biden and as his legal team and others continued their efforts to reverse the election.
An urgent concern, Biden said, is to ensure “that nothing is lost in transfers between administrations.”
“We need full insight into ongoing budget planning at the Department of Defense and other agencies to avoid any confusion or catch-up moves that our opponents might try to exploit.”
While the president-elect’s comments were among his most critical of the Trump administration from the Wilmington desk, they were not the first instance of Biden’s battle with Trump’s Defense Department.
Tensions between the Pentagon and Biden’s team became public earlier this month, following a dispute over Miller’s decision to cancel meetings with the transition team for the remainder of the year.
Miller said in a statement there was a “mutually agreed upon vacation break,” but a Biden spokesman fired back that no such agreement had been made.
“Let me be clear: there was no mutually agreed holiday break,” transition spokesman Yohannes Abraham had told reporters.
Weeks after the election, defense officials confirmed that the transition process had begun within the Pentagon.
“Today’s first meeting was by videoconference. It was a good, productive meeting where we pretty much laid down the ground rules,” said Tom Muir, director of Washington Headquarters Services, at a Pentagon briefing Nov. 24.
“They look forward to participating in discussions here at the Pentagon,” added Muir, who is facilitating the transition process.
Muir said at the time that the Biden team will have a dedicated office space in the Pentagon and appropriate access to intelligence.