Biden’s transition pushes fundraising as Trump administration blocks funding



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Biden’s transition team sent a fundraising appeal to their supporters list on Friday, with the email saying, “Without verification, we have to fund the transition ourselves, and that’s why we’re reaching out to you. today.”

The proper transition funding by Congress is one of the many key resources that Biden’s transition team is unable to tap into without verification. The money allows the incoming administration to fund its transition efforts, including paying its staff and agency review teams.

Biden and his advisers mounted a public pressure campaign for GSA administrator Emily Murphy to formally recognize the election results and allow full transition planning, including access to confidential information and coordination distribution of an upcoming vaccine.

The transition team began its private fundraising efforts in June and has so far raised more than $ 10 million for the process, a source close to the fundraising efforts said. But the email sent on Friday represents a new phase in the team’s fundraising process, as it now turns to grassroots donors in their action.

“Grassroots supporters like you made a Joe Biden presidency possible,” the fundraising email read. “And now we are counting on you again to help us through this critical time.”

Three Democratic consolidators also said they recently received requests to raise additional funds for the transition operation, as the GSA’s verification is stalled. The maximum transition contribution is $ 5,000, well below the donation limit of $ 360,600 for the Biden Victory Fund in the general election.

“We need everyone to step in again to help the transition team mobilize the resources they need,” read a fundraising email from Chris Korge, chairman of national finance for the Democratic National Committee. .

The president-elect said his team had not ruled out legal options, but argued that a legal fight could not significantly speed up the formal transition process.

“The Biden-Harris transition has been planning every possible scenario for months. While we wait for the GSA administrator to respect the will of the people and be a good steward of taxpayer resources, we will execute contingency plans, including including continuing to solicit private funds to support transition planning, “said one transition official.” The nation faces too many challenges not to have a fully funded and smooth transition to prepare for the president-elect. and the vice president elected to rule on the first day.

Biden and his advisers have publicly pushed for the GSA to verify the election, saying it complicates their planning efforts when the president-elect is expected to take office on January 20.

“This is not a talk to whom game. Our failure to initiate the informal agency review process has the potential to have real impacts across the country,” said Yohannes Abraham, an adviser at Biden transition. “There is no substitute for real-time information that can only come from the post-audit environment we should be in right now.”

After the 2000 election, the GSA delayed transition funding and office space for George W. Bush until then-Vice President Al Gore conceded it in December. At a press conference in November that year, Dick Cheney, who led Bush’s transition before becoming vice president, said they would raise private funds to finance their operations.

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