Trump ignoring this federal law means he can now 'circumvent fundraising rules': report

09 October 2024

In a big bet on the success of his candidacy, former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign is now refusing to comply with an established federal law.

That's according to a Wednesday article in the New York Times, which is now reporting that the former president is outright rejecting coordinating with President Joe Biden's administration on its transition plans. The Times' Ken Bensinger wrote that federal law actually requires the presidential nominees of both parties to sign agreements to keep the outgoing administration apprised of its transition plans in order to have a "seamless transfer of power" regardless of which party wins the election. Trump has reportedly now missed two key deadlines for signing the agreements (Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign has complied with the deadlines).

Bensinger also noted that by not signing the documents — one of which is related to ethics — the ex-president can by default "circumvent fund-raising rules that put limits on private contributions to the transition effort." Trump is also not in compliance with "ethics rules meant to avoid possible conflicts of interest for the incoming administration."

The Trump transition team pushed back on assertions that it was flouting federal law, telling the Times it "continue[s] to constructively engage" with the Biden administration and that it was simply negotiating the fine print of the agreements. Trump transition co-chairs Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon (Trump's former Small Business Association secretary and wife of WWE co-founder Vince McMahon) added that "any suggestion to the contrary is false and intentionally misleading."

According to the Times, the presidential transition process is a nonpartisan process that begins roughly six months prior to Election Day. This allows general election candidates the time necessary to vet the thousands of potential new appointees for their incoming administration, should they win.

“An effective transition leads to an effective administration. It leads to better staffing, better organization and leads to the country being safer and more secure,” John Jay College public policy professor Heath Brown told the Times. “I think the Trump transition team is unsure of how much they want to play by the rules.”

In his third bid for the White House, Trump has also refused to participate in national security briefings despite multiple ongoing global conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. And campaign staffers have not been obtaining security clearances necessary to view sensitive documents.

Notably, one major plank of Project 2025 — authored in part by more than 140 of Trump's former staffers and advisors — is the vetting of upwards of 54,000 new presidential appointees screened primarily for their loyalty to Trump and the MAGA agenda. While a president typically has roughly 5,000 political appointees, Project 2025 is based on drastically expanding the influence of the executive via an executive order dubbed "Schedule F," which torpedoes existing protections for the federal civil service in order to plant tens of thousands of new presidential appointees in key decision-making roles throughout all federal agencies.

Trump flouting transition rules and procedures in 2024 also follows a familiar pattern. The Times reported that in 2016, Trump abruptly fired his transition team leadership and stopped communicating with outgoing President Barack Obama's administration. And in 2020, as the former president unsuccessfully tried to overturn election results, his White House froze funding meant for President Joe Biden's incoming administration and "impeded communication" between Biden's transition team and federal agencies.

Click here to read the Times' report in full (subscription required).

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