Trump’s disregard of presidential transition requirements shows need for reform, experts argue

The presidential transition following the 2024 election “fell short of a gold standard,” according to a Nov. 19 report from the Center for Presidential Transition. The organization, which helps campaigns and agencies prepare for a transfer of power, criticized Trump transition officials for delaying and refusing standard assistance to ensure continuity of government operations. 

“The actions of the Trump transition team, particularly their breaking of norms and declining of services, calls into significant question whether those norms can or should be reinstituted,” wrote a trio of managers at the Center, which is housed under the nonpartisan good government nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. “With that in mind, it is incumbent on Congress to ensure guardrails of ethics, transparency and security are solidified, while other aspects of transition practice are updated and modernized to encourage candidates to accept them.”

Specifically, Trump was weeks late in reaching agreements governing communications between his transition team and federal employees from around the election until the inauguration, providing less time for agencies to collaborate with new political leadership, for the Office of Government Ethics to review political appointees’ potential conflicts of interests and for the FBI to conduct background checks on new government officials. 

These delays held up the Senate confirmations of some Cabinet members. 

The Trump transition team never accepted assistance from the General Services Administration, which included office space and secure information technology. This allowed those officials to “avoid disclosing transition donors, agency review team members and the use of their transition funding.” 

“Without acceptance of the services, no legal mechanism could force cooperation with these goals historically identified by Congress as important,” the report authors wrote. “Government transition officials had to develop transition implementation instructions in real-time and weigh supporting maximum readiness for the Trump team against its potential noncompliance with national security and ethics practices.”

Because Trump team members did not use a .gov email address, as one example of the consequences of refusing GSA transition services, there was an increased risk for federal employees of sharing sensitive information with unauthorized individuals. 

“Individuals would email agencies or appear in virtual meetings using addresses with a range of domain names, including ‘@transition47.com, @trumpvancetransition.com and @djtfp24.com’ — and not all requests were from legitimate sources,” according to the report. 

The Center also found that Trump’s refusal to sign a memorandum of understanding with GSA also delayed Vice President Kamala Harris from reaching such an agreement, as agency officials were concerned about the appearance of favoring one campaign over the other. Ultimately, Harris’ team executed an MOU with GSA. 

As part of developing the report, Center staff interviewed members of Trump’s transition team, Harris’ team, the Biden White House and career feds. 

The organization recommended that Congress require the public disclosure of agency review team members, names of transition team donors who give more than a specific amount and how the team spent public and private funding. The Center also suggested that, rather than require transition team members to use .gov email addresses, GSA could set up a system to ensure a team’s external platform meets cybersecurity standards in order to communicate with agency staff.