By Steve Holland and Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has signed a memorandum of understanding with the White House that will allow Trump to formally begin his transition to power, his incoming chief of staff said on Tuesday, after weeks of delays.
The move will allow Trump’s team to coordinate directly with federal agencies and access documents. The unusual delay in signing the agreement after the Nov. 5 election had raised concerns among some critics about potential hiccups in government operations or conflicts of interest.
“This engagement allows our intended Cabinet nominees to begin critical preparations, including the deployment of landing teams to every department and agency, and complete the orderly transition of power,” Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, said in a statement.
Trump, a Republican, will take office on Jan. 20. His team had rejected entreaties from Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration to quickly sign a memorandum of understanding and had objected to some elements of a traditional transition agreement, according to the White House.
Under the agreement signed on Tuesday, Trump’s team avoided signing a government ethics pledge, saying it has its own ethics plan that will “meet the requirements for personnel to seamlessly move into the Trump administration.”
The separate pledge was later posted to the General Services Administration’s website. It included promises that transition team members will avoid conflicts of interests, will safeguard classified information and will disqualify themselves from involvement in any matter if they have engaged in lobbying on the issue in the previous 12 months.
The separate plan means the FBI will not be conducting background checks for security clearances. A White House official said while a Justice Department agreement has not been signed, progress has been made toward such an agreement.
Circumventing background checks would buck a long-established norm in Washington, but the president has the final authority on whom he nominates and picks to conduct background checks.
The transition said it already has existing security and information protections built in, “which means we will not require additional government and bureaucratic oversight.”
Trump’s team also broke from tradition and did not sign an agreement with the General Services Administration that would provide the use of office space. The team said it did not want to waste taxpayer money by using government offices.
White House spokesperson Saloni Sharma said the Biden administration did not agree with the Trump team’s decision to forgo signing some of the usual agreements but the White House would go ahead with the transition process to avoid more delays.
Trump’s team said his transition will use private funding instead of government money to pay for transition costs. The team said donors to the transition will be disclosed to the public.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Nandita Bose and Eric Beech; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Deepa Babington)
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