{"id":90518,"date":"2020-11-18T12:24:25","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T17:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=90518"},"modified":"2020-11-18T12:24:25","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T17:24:25","slug":"auto-draft-324","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2020\/11\/18\/auto-draft-324\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Convenes His Own Security Briefing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"VOA \u2014 WHITE HOUSE – Blocked by the administration of President Donald Trump from receiving official national security briefings, President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday convened his own meeting of outside diplomatic, intelligence and defense experts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not being critical in stating the obvious,\u201d Biden said at the start of the meeting. \u201cWe know that I\u2019ve been unable to get the briefings that ordinarily would come by now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"General<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
FILE – General Services Administration Administrator Emily Murphy speaks a ceremony in Washington, June 21, 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The administrator of the Government Services Administration, Emily Murphy, has yet to sign what is known as the ascertainment document recognizing the transition, thus Biden\u2019s team has no access to certain funds and use of federal office space. That would also be taken as a signal by other government agencies to cooperate with the Biden transition organization. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAn ascertainment has not yet been made,\u201d said a spokesperson for the agency, speaking on condition of not being named. \u201cGSA and its administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law and adhere to prior precedent established by the Clinton administration in 2000.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some federal officials tell VOA that even without the ascertainment by GSA, Trump \u2013 if he desired \u2013 could authorize Biden to receive classified briefings. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly claimed on Twitter that he won reelection, alleging \u2013 without substantial evidence \u2013 fraudulent balloting and vote counting, although tallies from more than enough states have put Biden over the 270-electoral-vote threshold needed for victory. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Biden, speaking to the team of advisers, noted that when he was campaigning, he had said that the next president would inherit a divided country and a world in disarray. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I had been wrong, but that\u2019s why I badly need your advice,\u201d Biden added. \u201cTo answer these twin challenges, we\u2019re going to need to reinvigorate our democracy at home and champion a coalition of democracies we stand with and equip the American people to compete and succeed with a foreign policy that reflects their values and their needs.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

Biden, saying \u201cthere\u2019s no presidential responsibility more important than protecting the American people,\u201d lamented \u201ca lot of damage\u201d during the last three years to American institutions. \u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

Biden vowed in his remarks to the outside team to create a foreign policy that reflects the values and needs of the American people and \u201cput the United States back at the head of the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Deputy<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
FILE – Then-Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 29, 2016, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Biden, inside a downtown Wilmington, Delaware, historic theatre, spoke below video images displayed on a giant screen of former officials, including two retired generals, an admiral and several former ambassadors, as well as Tony Blinken, a former deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser, who is expected to have a key role in the next administration. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also included in Tuesday\u2019s virtual meeting were Avril Haines and Carmen Middleton, women who held high positions in the Central Intelligence Agency.<\/p>\n

Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon, a former U.S. ambassador to Uruguay,\u202fwas named as Jill Biden\u2019s chief of staff.\u202fLongtime\u202faide\u202fAnthony\u202fBernal\u202fwill\u202fbe\u202fJill Biden\u2019s\u202fsenior adviser.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

The president-elect on Tuesday also \u201ctook part in separate congratulatory calls today with leaders in Chile, India, Israel and South Africa,\u201d according to the transition team. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Biden has spoken to at least 15 world leaders since the election. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The president-elect said he has been telling them that \u201cAmerica\u2019s back. It\u2019s no longer America alone.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
FILE – Senate Majority Whip Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Border Security and Immigration Subcommittee, speaks during a hearing about the border, May 8, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and John Cornyn of Texas, have acknowledged that\u202fhanding\u202fBiden\u202fthe\u202f\u201cPresident\u2019s Daily Brief\u201d on intelligence assessments\u202fof national security threats to the\u202fU.S. around the globe\u202fis essential for him\u202fin assuming power.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lawsuits by the Trump campaign and Republican organizations claiming voting and vote-counting irregularities can proceed in tandem, those members of Congress have said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Election officials throughout the country have told VOA and other U.S. news organizations\u202fthat\u202fthey have found no evidence of widespread vote fraud, only relatively small incidences of possible voting irregularities that would not be enough to overturn the outcome of the election,\u202feven if Trump were to win his lawsuits.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day Biden named seven\u202fkey aides to his White House staff along with another two appointed to assist his wife,\u202fJill Biden. Last week, the president-elect named longtime aide Ron Klain as his White House chief of staff.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

The new appointments include Steve\u202fRicchetti, a\u202fcareer political strategist, as counselor to the president;\u202fCongressman Cedric Richmond of Louisiana as\u202fsenior adviser to Biden and director of the White House office of public engagement;\u202fand Jennifer O\u2019Malley Dillon,\u202fBiden\u2019s\u202felection campaign manager, as deputy chief of\u202fstaff.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mike Donilon,\u202fa veteran Biden aide,\u202fwas named senior adviser;\u202fDana Remus, a lawyer for the Biden campaign,\u202fas\u202fcounsel\u202fto the president; Julie Rodriguez, a former aide to Harris,\u202fas director of the White House office of intergovernmental affairs;\u202fand Annie Tomasini, another longtime Biden aide,\u202fas\u202fdirector of Oval Office operations, a gatekeeper on the president\u2019s daily activities.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 WHITE HOUSE – Blocked by the administration of President Donald Trump from receiving official national security briefings, President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday convened his own meeting of outside diplomatic, intelligence and defense experts.\u00a0 \u201cI am not being critical in stating the obvious,\u201d Biden said at the start of the meeting. \u201cWe know that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90518"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90521,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90518\/revisions\/90521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}