By Zeke Miller
The course of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition to power is dependent in part on an obscure declaration called “ascertainment.”
Here are some details on that process:
WHAT IS ASCERTAINMENT?
The formal presidential transition doesn’t begin until the administrator of the federal General Services Administration ascertains the “apparent successful candidate” in the general election. Neither the Presidential Transition Act nor federal regulations specify how that determination should be made. That decision green lights the entire federal government’s moves toward preparing for a handover of power.
WHY HASN'T IT HAPPENED YET?
Spokesperson Pamela Pennington said in a statement that “GSA and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law,” but the agency has not said why the decision to recognize Joe Biden as the president-elect has not been made. GSA is an executive branch agency. Its administrator, Emily Murphy, is a Trump appointee, but the ascertainment decision is supposed to be apolitical. The White House did not say whether there have been conversations on the matter between officials there and at GSA.
WHAT'S AT STAKE?
The determination clears the way for millions of federal dollars to flow to Biden’s transition team and opens the doors of the federal government to hundreds of Biden staffers, so they can begin assessing agency operations ahead of Inauguration Day on Jan. 20. A delay in recognizing Biden as the next president could slow federal resources to assist the Biden-Harris team in filling about 4,000 political appointments across the government — including critical national security and health postings.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Slowing the pace of the transition could hamstring a new administration right out of the gate. The Trump administration, experts say, never fully recovered from the slow pace of hiring from its mismanaged 2016 transition after Trump tossed aside carefully prepared plans the day after his victory.
HAS THIS DELAY EVER HAPPENED BEFORE?
In 2000, the GSA determination was delayed until after the Florida recount fight was settled. The abbreviated transition process was identified by the 9/11 Commission Report as contributing to the nation’s unpreparedness for the crisis.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know.
Nate Boyer, a former NFL player and Green Beret, is the man behind Colin Kaepernick's protests in 2016 when he suggested that the quarterback kneel instead of sit during the National Anthem as a sign of a respect. Two years later, Boyer believes people are missing the point of his protest and not listening to both sides of the issue.
Comedian Erin Gibson said that she believes Louis C.K.'s return to comedy is not welcome and hasn't been earned. Gibson believes retribution is necessary in order to re-enter the comedy space.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know.
Lance Ulanoff, tech and social media expert, and Ian Sherr, executive editor of CNET News, agreed that Google's decision to not send a top executive to testify to Congress alongside Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey is going to cause significant damage among lawmakers for the company.
Whichever "senior official" wrote the unsigned New York Times op-ed slamming President Trump should come out of the shadows and resign, said Marc Lotter, former press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence.
The New York Times published a scathing Op-Ed written by an unidentified senior official in the Trump administration, setting off a firestorm of speculation about who the insider is. The writer said he and others in the White House were part of “a quiet resistance” to keep the president in check.
John Carreyrou, the Wall Street Journal investigative reporter who first exposed the fraud at blood-testing company Theranos, said the former CEO of the once high-flying start-up had a chance to minimize the pain years ago, but instead used what money the company had to hide the truth.
The activist, diversity consultant, and author is unsure if tech executives like Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey are equipped to fix platforms that they in part helped create and which, at least in the case of Twitter, might be fundamentally broken.
Well, that happened.
Far-right conspiracy theorist and verbal bomb-thrower Alex Jones crashed both the Senate and House hearings on big tech Wednesday, commandeering media attention and at one point nearly getting into an altercation with Sen. Marco Rubio.
Jones told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin that he was there to "face my accusers." Jones, who founded the conspiracy site InfoWars, was booted off Facebook and YouTube for peddling hate speech, though he remains active on Twitter.
