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Chaotic presidential transition brings vulnerability, security risks to nation

InternationalNov 11. 2020President Donald Trump arrives in the White House briefing room in Washington on Nov. 05, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford 

By The Washington Post · Paul Sonne · NATIONAL, NATIONAL-SECURITY 

President Donald Trump’s firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper, days after losing the election, and a Pentagon personnel shake-up that has followed have injected uncertainty into the ranks of national security leadership at a vulnerable moment for the United States, adding more turmoil to a period that already carries risk for the nation.

In the week since Election Day, Trump has refused to concede and has publicized spurious claims of fraud to overshadow the result. He also has declined to give President-elect Joe Biden resources and daily presidential intelligence briefings to aid the transition to the new administration. The Pentagon turmoil could further jeopardize the prospect of a seamless handover, at what experts say is a sensitive time.

“It is a time of vulnerability, and it’s a time when your enemies can be testing you,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the nonprofit White House Transition Project. “It is the kind of thing that you have to get right.”

National security crises have challenged presidents during past transitions. The Iran hostage crisis – after militant students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran – came to a close in 1981 during the transition between Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan; the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, occurred in 1988 during the transition from Reagan to President George H.W. Bush; and Bush ordered U.S. troops into Somalia in his final weeks in office, in 1992, during the transition to President Bill Clinton.

Direct threats to the homeland have emerged during transitions as well. As George W. Bush welcomed President-elect Barack Obama to the White House for coffee on the morning of the 2009 inauguration, their respective national security aides sat in the Situation Room, discussing a possible threat to the event that U.S. intelligence had picked up from the extremist group al-Shabab, according to Kumar, who wrote a book about that transition.

The feared attack never took place, and the inauguration went off without a problem. But the Situation Room meeting, which came after joint crisis training sessions, underscored the vulnerability of the nation during presidential transitions – and how cooperation between the outgoing and incoming teams can reduce risk.

“Foreign adversaries believe that the United States is preoccupied during transitions, and it’s in our national security interest to demonstrate that we are not,” said David Marchick, director of the Center for Presidential Transition. He warned: “Failure to have a smooth transition could put our national security, our economic security and our health security at risk.”

Trump has signaled no interest in ensuring a seamless transition, instead proceeding as though he won a second term. The White House has told federal agencies to continue preparing for Trump’s budget submission to Congress in February.

The situation has prompted accusations that Trump is endangering the country.

“By destabilizing our national security team, we could increase the likelihood that one of our adversaries tries to take advantage of us,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview. “Trump is always distracted, but he is particularly distracted now, and there’s now also the possibility of having a fractured or inexperienced or incomplete national security team to deal with a crisis.” 

In addition to personnel changes, Trump also could make foreign policy moves before leaving office that could hem in Biden’s future choices, for example by increasing pressure on Iran to make reviving the 2015 nuclear accord even more difficult.

Foreign powers such as Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey that are likely to receive more pushback from a Biden administration could use the final months of the Trump administration to accomplish goals that might present challenges later, particularly if Washington is preoccupied with a chaotic presidential transition.

Neither Chinese President Xi Jinping nor Russian President Vladimir Putin has extended congratulations to Biden. A discordant transition could give both leaders an opportunity to make moves in their own regions. 

China could extend its crackdown on Hong Kong or make a move on more disputed islands in the South China Sea, while Russia could take measures in its proxy war in the eastern part of Ukraine. 

“Congress can fill part of the void,” Murphy said on Twitter. “Bipartisan statements, resolutions, and legislation can make clear there will be a cross-party consensus around consequences for any escalatory actions by other powers in the transition period.”

Uncertainty about how the United States would react during a lame-duck presidency could also deter foreign powers from taking the risk. 

“The problem is, if you actually try to exploit it in a period of this kind of transition, you have absolutely no idea of what the American reaction would be, both immediately or over time,” said Anthony Cordesman, a foreign policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

A chaotic transition could disadvantage the Biden administration if a crisis, in addition to the coronavirus pandemic, emerges during its first months in office.

The 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people and injured more than 1,000, occurred just a month after Clinton took office. The same month, federal law enforcement officers began a siege of a religious sect compound in Waco, Tex., that ended with the deaths of dozens of cult followers. When the siege began, Clinton didn’t have a confirmed attorney general. Two months later, authorities foiled a plot linked to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to assassinate George H.W. Bush during a visit to Kuwait. 

The rocky transition between Clinton and George W. Bush in 2000, following a recount in Florida and subsequent Supreme Court case, delayed the final result by more than 30 days, halving the normal transition period. The 9/11 Commission Report later found “this loss of time hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees” ahead of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The report recommended that administrations minimize the disruption of national security policymaking during the transition by accelerating the process for key appointments, noting that the Bush administration didn’t have a team on the job with critical sub-Cabinet officials for at least six months, making the team less prepared to deal with the Sept. 11 attacks.

Russian interference in the 2016 election to boost Trump loomed over the transition from Obama to Trump four years ago, leading to the publication of a special U.S. intelligence report on the matter, scrutiny of incoming national security adviser Michael T. Flynn’s interactions with the Russian ambassador and later veto-proof sanctions on Russia that passed in the Senate.

The inexperience of the Trump team amplified the chaos during the transition and afterward. George W. Bush had 35 Senate-confirmed positions by the end of the first 100 days because of the shortened transition and Obama had 69; Trump had only 28, according to the Center for Presidential Transition. 

Marchick said the Bush-Obama transition set a gold standard, in part because Bush made the matter a priority after his own rushed experience coming into office. 

Biden is entering the White House after recent updates to the law – some of which were written and introduced by former senator Ted Kaufman (Del.), Biden’s longtime chief of staff in the Senate and head of his transition team – setting out requirements for the transfer of power. 

Among other things, those changes require the creation of a White House transition coordinating council six months before the election. The Trump administration set up the council, which is chaired by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and vice chaired by Chris Liddell, the deputy chief of staff. The law also requires each federal agency to put a senior career employee in charge of the transition activities. 

But Trump has refused to set in motion much of what the laws require. The administrator of the General Services Administration, a Trump appointee, is supposed to sign a formal notice to begin the transition but has declined to do so.

“Transitions have taken on a new form since 2010. Prior to 2010, they were much less formal, primarily in secret. After 2010, they have emerged as an important obligation of a candidate, and that’s because of legislation,” said Mike Leavitt, a former Utah governor who worked on the changes to the law after serving in George W. Bush’s Cabinet.

Leavitt said the first priority for the incoming administration is to choose a White House staff and the second priority is to select a national security team, including a national security adviser, secretary of state and defense secretary.

“One of the most important components and most important reasons for [an orderly] transition is that if you are a foreign power and looking for an opportunity to be harmful to the interests of the United States, you’d look for a period of confusion and a lack of controls – and those could potentially come in transitions,” Leavitt said.

The United States has endured disorderly and acrimonious transitions in the past. Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Johnson, for example, didn’t attend the inaugurations of their successors. During the transition from James Buchanan to Abraham Lincoln, seven Southern states seceded from the Union, setting the stage for the Civil War.

“Chaos is probably more the historical normal, but recently we have established new standards, and that’s appropriate – and the question is: Will the current administration meet the task?” said Stephen Hadley, who served as George W. Bush’s national security adviser and played a crucial role in the Bush-Obama transition. 

Hadley said that even if Trump doesn’t support the transition, people in his administration and career employees at the agencies understand the importance of a presidential handover and are determined to have a good transition.

“If the president doesn’t disrupt it, it will happen,” he said. 

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Biden warns Johnson of Brexit risk to Northern Ireland peace

InternationalNov 11. 2020U.S. President-elect Joe Biden 

By Bloomberg · Tim Ross · NATIONAL, BUSINESS, WORLD, POLITICS, EUROPE 
Joe Biden used his first phone call with Boris Johnson as U.S. president-elect to warn the British leader not to compromise peace in Northern Ireland in his pursuit of Brexit.

During the course of a 20- to 25-minute conversation on Tuesday, Biden “reaffirmed his support” for the 1998 deal that put an end to the violence in Northern Ireland, according to a statement from the president-elect’s team.

A British official confirmed that Biden raised the Good Friday Agreement in the context of Brexit negotiations, and that Johnson responded by promising the president-elect that Britain would uphold the peace accord. Biden spoke later to Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, and again made a point of emphasizing his backing for peace in the region.

The fact that Johnson was number two on the list of leaders Biden called, after Canada’s Justin Trudeau, will be welcomed in London as a sign that the incoming White House team still regards Britain as a vital ally.

But the exchange over Northern Ireland marks an uncomfortable start to the newest incarnation of the so-called special relationship between the U.K. and the U.S. and suggests Biden will not be an unequivocal backer of Johnson’s Brexit project in the way President Donald Trump has been.

The two men have never met in person, and Biden has shown himself to be fiercely proud of his Irish roots. His transition to power comes at a delicate phase in the U.K.’s divorce from the European Union. Unlike Trump, Biden was opposed to Brexit and has aired his views on it.

Back in September, Biden raised his concerns over Johnson’s plan to break international law by reneging on parts of the Brexit divorce agreement he struck with the EU relating to trade with Northern Ireland. President Barack Obama, who Biden served under, famously weighed in on the 2016 referendum to say that if the U.K. opted out of the EU the U.S. would be put at the “back of the queue” when it came to trade talks.

Those talks, begun under Trump, will now likely be followed up by a Biden administration in a process that could take years, judging by the length of previous trade negotiations.

Biden had said in September that any U.S. trade deal with the U.K. must be “contingent” on respecting the Northern Ireland peace agreement and avoiding a return to a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.

A British official said the call was friendly and good. The U.K. has always insisted its plans do not compromise peace in the region and are intended to safeguard stability.

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Multiple people injured in attack on Armistice Day ceremony in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia says France

InternationalNov 11. 2020

By The Washington Post · James McAuley · WORLD, EUROPE, MIDDLE-EAST 

PARIS — Several people were injured Wednesday by an explosion at an Armistice Day commemoration in the Saudi Arabian port city of Jiddah, the French Foreign Ministry confirmed. 

The incident occurred at a non-Muslim cemetery, where a number of foreign diplomats had gathered to mark the end of World War I at an annual event organized by the French consulate. 

“This morning, at the Jiddah Cemetery, a ceremony commemorating the end of World War I was the target of an improvised explosive device attack,” the French Embassy in Saudia Arabia said in a statement. “The Embassies of France, Greece, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, which were associated with this commemoration, strongly condemn this cowardly attack.”

Although details of the incident remain unclear, it follows a knife attack on a security guard at the French Consulate in Jiddah late last month after France doubled down on defending caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, a stance that triggered protests and boycotts across the Muslim world. 

France has defended the caricatures and the principle of free expression after a teacher was beheaded in October in the Paris suburbs for showing students those images. Three people were subsequently killed in a knife attack in a basilica in Nice in a similar attack. 

In an interview with Al Jazeera late last month, President Emmanuel Macron sought to calm rising tensions between France and much of the Muslim world over the Muhammad caricatures. 

Macron said he could “understand the sentiments being expressed, and I respect them.” But he refused to budge in defending free expression. “I will always defend in my country the freedom to speak, to write, to think, to draw,” he added, although he has since taken aim at foreign press articles that he said “divide us” and that “we can do without.” 

The perpetrator of the earlier Jiddah stabbing was a Saudi citizen who was immediately taken into custody by authorities. The kingdom has expressed its solidarity with France and condemned the recent terrorist attacks on French soil. 

Saudi Arabia has been frequently targeted by terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, which carried out a series of large-scale attacks beginning in 2003, and more recently by assailants sympathetic to the Islamic State militant group. Attacks have been directed at government facilities, Westerners stationed in the kingdom and members of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority, who are considered heretics by hard-line Sunni Muslims.

“Such attacks on innocent people are shameful and entirely without justification,” said the statement from the French Embassy in Riyadh. A man who answered the phone at the embassy declined to comment further on Wednesday’s attack. 

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China forces ouster of Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers as crackdown intensifies

InternationalNov 11. 2020

By The Washington Post · Shibani Mahtani, Theodora Yu · WORLD, ASIA-PACIFIC

HONG KONG – China forced the ouster of four pro-democracy lawmakers from Hong Kong’s legislature on Wednesday, triggering a mass walkout of opposition lawmakers and solidifying Beijing’s stranglehold on the city.

The move, announced by Hong Kong officials after Beijing issued a new directive to disqualify lawmakers it deemed unpatriotic, represented a decisive blow that virtually eliminates opposition in the legislature for the first time since Hong Kong’s handover from Britain in 1997.

Beijing’s ruling, bypassing Hong Kong’s courts and political structures, underlined its efforts to sharply curb the financial center’s autonomy. The intervention and its timing also signaled to President-elect Joe Biden that the ruling Communist Party has no intention of easing its crackdown on Hong Kong, a subject of bitter dispute between the United States and China.

The four lawmakers – among them the accountant Kenneth Leung and lawyer Alvin Yeung, who leads a liberal party – were barred in July from recontesting legislative elections originally scheduled for September but which the government postponed for a year, citing the coronavirus.

They were initially told they could stay on until the election. But on Wednesday, Beijing passed a resolution that any lawmakers who support Hong Kong’s independence, or are otherwise deemed unpatriotic for reasons such as petitioning foreign powers to intervene in the city’s affairs, must be disqualified. 

Pro-democracy representatives had already threatened to resign en masse if that happened, and they announced hours later that they would walk out of the legislature, saying it was no longer a legitimate political forum. 

“They have totally given up on ‘one country, two systems’ in Hong Kong,” said Wu Chi-wai, leader of the Democratic Party, referring to the framework by which the city enjoyed autonomy within China. “Our colleagues are being disqualified by the central government’s ruthless rules.”

They would formally resign Thursday, he said, adding, “We will continue to fight, and find a path.” 

Almost a dozen pro-democracy legislators have been arrested in recent months on various charges, an indication of the pressure on them after backing anti-government protests last year.

In a news conference, the four expressed sadness and dismay, and said they had fought for the democratic principles in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution and laws. 

“We are all professional people, giving up a lot of our time and resources, because we want to fight for justice and the core values of Hong Kong,” said Leung, who has represented the accountancy sector for the past eight years. In a previous interview with The Washington Post, Leung pushed back against the government’s allegations that he had supported U.S. sanctions against Hong Kong officials, the reason election officials used to ban him from seeking office again. 

Dennis Kwok, another ousted lawmaker, had drawn China’s ire for using filibuster rules to stall the passage of laws pushed by Beijing – including one, since approved, that criminalized mockery of the national anthem. 

“If observing due process and protecting systems and functions and fighting for democracy and human rights will lead to the consequences of being disqualified, it will be my honor,” Kwok said Wednesday. 

The resolution from Beijing marks the second time this year that the central government has directly intervened in a consequential political decision in Hong Kong. Under the terms of the handover, Hong Kong was meant to have a high degree of autonomy in everything but foreign affairs and defense. 

In late June, Beijing passed a new national security law by fiat, similarly bypassing Hong Kong’s political structures. For the democracy movement, the law was chilling both for its content – punishing broadly worded crimes like “sedition” and “subversion of state power” with life in prison – and the way it was enacted. 

The United States responded by ceasing to treat Hong Kong as separate from China and imposing sanctions on officials, including Chief Executive Carrie Lam, for undermining human rights. This week, the Treasury Department added four more people to its sanctions list. 

Lam told reporters Wednesday it was “logical” that one who is “not fit to run for election is not fit to be a lawmaker.” Hong Kong officials could not decide on whether to let the four stay on, so her government sought Beijing’s advice, she added.

China’s liaison office in Hong Kong said in a statement that anyone who ran for office had to be “patriotic” and to love Hong Kong and China. Beijing’s decision, it added, adheres to Hong Kong’s mini-constitution – known as the Basic Law – and the national security law.

Chinese analysts expect tensions between the United States and China, including over Hong Kong, to persist under a Biden administration. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was among the sponsors of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which paved the way for sanctions, and has spoken in support of the democracy movement. 

Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, said Beijing’s latest move “sends a clear message to the Biden administration that nothing has changed.” 

China is saying “we will continue to do what we want to do, and you’d better sort of come to terms with it,” Tsang said. 

He added that by quitting the chamber the pro-democracy lawmakers, while faced with a difficult situation, had effectively helped Beijing create a rubber-stamp legislature.

Lam, the chief executive, said she was not concerned about a lack of opposition members. 

“We are more excited when bills are passed more efficiently,” Lam said.