Pentagon denies blocking Biden transition team

Initially, the Biden transition team had improperly reached out directly to the agencies instead of the DoD transition team, and was told that they instead needed to submit requests to the Pentagon.

“That was more of an internal issue for the Biden team than a DoD issue,” said the defense official.

The issue has been resolved and meetings are now scheduled on Monday and Tuesday with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, according to DoD.

The earlier news reports suggested that Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist who the White House recently installed as Miller’s chief of staff, was involved in blocking the meetings.

But the senior defense official who briefed reporters pushed back on that characterization, saying that Patel has delegated much of his responsibility as head of the transition to Tom Muir, the career civilian head of the DoD transition team.

Source:Politico