Republicans urge Trump admin to let Biden receive briefings amid stalled transition

Several Republican lawmakers on November 12 said that the Trump administration should allow 46th President-elect Joe Biden to receive intelligence briefings. Taking part in the briefings is one of the first rights of the presidential candidate after winning the election, however, most Republicans and lawmakers have publicly supported Trump’s effort to overturn the election result and have refused to recognise Biden as the president-elect. The uncertainty is being posed by US President, who has not only refused to concede to Biden but has also mounted legal challenges overvotes being ‘stolen’.

But a handful of Republican senators urged the Trump administration to allow the president-elect to receive the briefing, implicitly acknowledging he could eventually occupy the White House even as they refused to recognise his win. Republicans, including John Cornyn, Ron Johnson, James Lankford, Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham, urged the Trump administration to allow Biden access to presidential daily intelligence briefings. 

While speaking to reporters, Cornyn said, “I don’t see it as a high-risk proposition. I just think it’s part of the transition. And, if in fact he does win in the end, I think they need to be able to hit the ground running”. 

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Trump should lead ‘peaceful transition’ 

Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine, who is a Republican who endorsed Trump, also told CNN that the officials “need to consider” the former vice president as the president-elect. Further, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is owned by major Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, also mean an editorial noting that there was no evidence of fraud and Trump “seeks to delay the inevitable”. White House deputy chief of staff to Republican former President George W Bush, Karl Rove also wrote in Wall Street Journal that once Trump’s day in court is over, the president should do his part to “unite the country” by leading a peaceful transition and letting grievance go. 

Moreover, Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford has also said that he will intervene if the Trump administration continues to restrict Biden’s access to presidential daily intelligence briefings by the end of this week. Lankford stressed that it “needs to occur” irrespective of what happens in the upcoming months. The Oklahoma Senator said that “This needs to occur so that regardless of the outcome of the election, whichever way that it goes, people can be ready for that actual task.” 

Meanwhile, as US politics continues to grow more chaotic after Joe Biden was called for the winner of the presidential elections, US President Donald Trump administration is now preventing the president-elect from accessing the stack of messages sitting at the State Department. The US Department of Homeland Security, on the other hand, has also found the election to be incredibly secure. Amid the chaos that Biden has termed as ‘embarrassment’, reportedly there are dozens of messages that have been left unrelieved. 

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