Pentagon halts Biden transition briefings

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Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios.

The latest: Biden transition director Yohannes Abraham contradicted the Pentagon's official response to this story on Friday afternoon, telling reporters, "Let me be clear: there was no mutually agreed upon holiday break."

• "In fact, we think it’s important that briefings and other engagements continue during this period as there’s no time to spare, and that’s particularly true in the aftermath of ascertainment delay," Abraham continued, referring to the Trump administration's delay in recognizing Biden as president-elect.
• Miller had said in a statement following the publication of this story: "At no time has the Department cancelled or declined any interview. ... After the mutually-agreed upon holiday, which begins tomorrow, we will continue with the transition and rescheduled meetings from today."

Behind the scenes: Trump administration officials left open the possibility cooperation would resume after a holiday pause. The officials were unsure what prompted Miller's action, or whether President Trump approved.

Why it matters: Miller's move, which stunned officials throughout the Pentagon, was the biggest eruption yet of animus and mistrust toward the Biden team from the top level of the Trump administration.

• Fury at the Biden team among senior Pentagon officials escalated after the Washington Post published a story on Wednesday night revealing how much money would be saved if Biden halted construction of Trump's border wall.
• Trump officials blame the leak on the Biden transition team (Though, it should be noted, they have no evidence of this, and both reporters on the byline cover the Trump administration and have historically been prolific beneficiaries of leaks.)

What happened: Meetings between President Trump's team and the Biden team are going on throughout the government, after a delayed start as the administration dragged its feet on officially recognizing Biden as president-elect.

• Then on Thursday night, Miller — who was appointed Nov. 9, when Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper right after the election — ordered officials throughout the building to cancel scheduled transition meetings.

A senior Defense Department official sought to downplay the move, calling it "a simple delay of the last few scheduled meetings until after the new year."

• "We had fewer than two dozen remaining meetings on the schedule today and next week," the official said, adding that "the DoD staff working the meetings were overwhelmed by the number of meetings."
• "These same senior leaders needed to do their day jobs and were being consumed by transition activities. ... With the holidays we are taking a knee for two weeks. We are still committed to a productive transition."

Trump's coup against Biden has started! Civil War is imminent!

 

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Trump's coup against Biden has started! Civil War is imminent!

The summer riots were prepared by Washington as the dress rehearsal. They needed those riots to help defeat Dems because Republicans get out to vote when blacks riot. And to test out military use against protestors and crackdown of rioters for trump stealing the November s'elections' in advent of biden winning the electoral college as their internal polling showed a biden landslide.

 

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The summer riots were prepared by Washington as the dress rehearsal. They needed those riots to help defeat Dems because Republicans get out to vote when blacks riot. And to test out military use against protestors and crackdown of rioters for trump stealing the November s'elections' in advent of biden winning the electoral college as their internal polling showed a biden landslide.

Heated Oval Office meeting included talk of special counsel, martial law as Trump advisers clash

President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump's aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn's more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.

Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden -- an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn't clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.
The meeting was first reported by the New York Times.

White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations Trump's own administration has dismissed (or, as seems more feasible, hiring her in the administration for some kind of investigatory role). Powell has focused her conspiracies on voting machines and has floated the notion of having a special counsel inspect the machines for flaws.

Another idea floated in the meeting was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them.

One person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.


Martial law? Did I just read "martial law"?