Trump administration blocks Biden transition because Trump won't admit he lost

Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election over baseless and false claims of voter fraud is now having real-world consequences for President-elect Joe Biden, as a Trump appointee is refusing to sign a letter that lets Biden begin his transition, the Washington Post reported.

Emily Murphy, the head of the General Services Administration, won’t release millions in funding set aside for the transition, nor allow Biden to have access to space in federal agencies or access to government officials — which could slow down the peaceful transition of power from Trump to Biden.

The Washington Post reported that Murphy’s refusal to sign off on the transition “could lead to the first transition delay in modern history” — other than in 2000 when the race between Al Gore and George W. Bush was playing out in the court system.

Trump, for his part, has claimed he won the election “by a lot.” But the sore loser refusal to admit defeat won’t just cause embarrassment for Trump and the GOP, it will also impact Biden’s ability to hit the ground running once he’s inaugurated.

Democrats are calling on Murphy to sign off on the transition.

“GSA Admin Emily Murphy must begin the Biden transition without delay. The Administrator plays a critical role in the peaceful transfer of power and ensuring vital government services are not disrupted. This is all the more important amid a deadly pandemic. Do the right thing,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) tweeted on Sunday.

So is the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition, which said on Nov. 8 that the Trump administration should formally allow the transition to begin.

“We urge the Trump administration to immediately begin the post-election transition process and the Biden team to take full advantage of the resources available under the Presidential Transition Act,” the bipartisan group of leaders of the organization said in a statement on Sunday.

The Trump campaign has filed several lawsuits to try to impede ballot counting and possibly even overturn the will of the voters.

However, experts say the lawsuits are unlikely to succeed.

So far, the Trump campaign and the GOP have lost 10 challenges they have filed since Election Day, according to Marc Elias, a lawyer who has been working to fight Republican lawsuits that sought to make voting harder.

Several Trump team lawsuits failed because the Trump administration couldn’t provide any evidence that voter fraud existed.

The Wall Street Journal reported that even if Trump’s lawsuits were successful, they are “limited in scope and unlikely to produce large vote swings” that would overturn the results of the race.

Biden has currently won 279 Electoral College votes, and has a more than 4 million popular vote lead over Trump.

A handful of states have yet to be called, but Biden is on track to win 306 Electoral College votes — the same Electoral College victory Trump secured in 2016 which he called a “landslide.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.