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A Republican senator backtracked on Twitter Wednesday night after telling a local Oklahoma radio station that he would “step in” if Joe Biden did not start receiving daily intelligence reports by the end of this year. the week.
In an interview with the local KRMG, first picked up by The Hill, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford was asked about his thoughts on the refusal of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to inform the President-elect until to have another arm of the bureaucracy certify Biden. victory.
“There is no loss for him to have the briefings, and to be able to do it,” Lankford said. “And if that doesn’t happen by Friday, I will step in too, and I will be able to lobby and say that it has to happen, so that whatever the outcome of the election … people can be ready for this real task. . “
In his suggestion that the “outcome of the election” was still uncertain, Lankford made himself an ally of Donald Trump’s cause to overthrow the election or, failing that, to spoil public confidence in it, as a way to weaken Biden.
Still, apparently under pressure to clarify that he didn’t want to suggest Biden might have won, Lankford later tweeted support for the president’s prosecution of baseless electoral fraud charges.
“President @realDonaldTrump has every right to call for recounts and to have every legal question fully considered and resolved,” Lankford wrote. “It’s important to the 71 million Americans who voted for President Trump that at the end of all of this their questions are answered.”
The failure of elected Republicans to admit Biden won the election and to contradict Trump’s false accusations of electoral fraud allows those accusations to flourish and persuade new voters every hour of the 2020 election – and by extension American democracy – is illegitimate, analysts say.
The presidential transition process is on hold, meanwhile, with Biden’s aides being barred from offices, scrutiny of those named by Biden not being able to begin and Biden himself excluded from the daily presidential briefing.
The White House has a custom of sharing the daily presidential briefing with the president-elect during the transition period since the briefing’s advent in the 1960s, David Priess, author of a book on presidential briefings, told NPR.. The briefing contains intelligence findings and an analysis of potential threats and opportunities.
Trump himself began receiving daily intelligence briefings soon after the 2016 election, but then revealed that he generally ignored them, thinking he didn’t need them, explaining on Fox News: “You know, I’m a smart person. ”
An open letter signed by four former internal security secretaries from both sides warned on Wednesday that the postponement of the presidential transition put the country in danger.
“In this time of increased risk to our nation, we do not have a day to lose in starting the transition,” the letter said. “For the sake of the nation, we must start now.”
Former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, echoed the warning.
“Our adversaries are not waiting for the transition to take place”, Rogers tweeted. “Joe Biden is expected to receive the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) today. He needs to know what the latest threats are and start planning accordingly. It is not a question of politics; it is a matter of national security. “
Asked about the daily briefings on Tuesday, Biden himself, who served in the Senate for 36 years before serving for eight years as vice president, called them nice but not, for now, necessary.
“Obviously, the PDB would help, but it’s not necessary,” Biden said. “I am not the sitting president now.”
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