As the Trump administration continues standing in the way of the Biden transition team, aides to the president-elect will be meeting with congressional committee staffers in an effort to get up to speed on important issues, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The news of the planned meetings is the latest example of how the Biden team is finding ways around a stumbling block put forward by the Trump administration to bar administration officials from cooperating with Biden’s team and providing much needed transition information and resources to the incoming administration as Trump continues to fume over his loss.
Without formal access to career government officials and the transition resources they have prepared, Biden’s team is moving forward with alternative routes and its meetings with relevant congressional committees, which will likely offer help in providing direct knowledge about the wide-ranging agencies they oversee.
The WSJ reported that while transition aides are planning to meet with Democratic staff on those committees, it was unclear if GOP staff would also be involved.
Vowing during his first formal address as President-elect to make combating coronavirus his top priority, the President-elect has also circumvented efforts by HHS Secretary Alex Azar to prohibit cooperation from officials in his department with the Biden team by consulting with outside health experts about the coronavirus.
The news of the pending meetings follows an earlier report that the Biden transition team has also been in touch with a handful of current and recently-departed Trump administration officials who have stepped forward to offer insight in spite of efforts by the administration to stall transition.
