Pressure on agency tasked with Trump-Biden handover

WASHINGTON • A little-known agency that keeps the United States federal bureaucracy running is the biggest impediment to new efforts to fight the coronavirus outbreak, President-elect Joe Biden said on Wednesday.

"There's a whole lot of things that we just don't have available to us," Mr Biden said, including the distribution plan for Covid-19 vaccines.

Ms Emily Murphy, administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), must "ascertain" the winner of the Nov 3 presidential election between Mr Biden and Republican President Donald Trump.

That is a condition of releasing funds and resources to the winner, but she has so far not done so.

Despite a clear margin of victory for Mr Biden, Mr Trump has refused to concede, and his legal challenges are fizzling. Ms Murphy has sole authority to release salaries, office space and intelligence briefings to an incoming administration, which takes over with Mr Biden's inauguration on Jan 20.

"Unless it's made available soon, we're going to be behind by weeks or months" in his administration's efforts to fight Covid-19, Mr Biden told emergency responders, nurses and other front-line workers at an online event in Washington.

"So, I just want to tell you that's the only slowdown right now that we have."

A third wave of coronavirus infection has gripped the US, and the country's death toll crossed 250,000 on Wednesday.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy described a "crazy situation" where he speaks daily with the White House coronavirus experts and separately with Mr Biden's advisory board on the virus.

"Those two camps aren't speaking. And that's a big problem," Mr Murphy, a Democrat, told CNN.

"That is a major problem that could put both the distribution of the vaccine at risk and, more broadly, lives at risk."

Ms Murphy is under mounting pressure from election watchdogs, Democrats, Republicans, the American Medical Association and her predecessor to recognise Mr Biden as the winner.

"She's going to make an ascertainment when the winner is clear, as laid out in the Constitution," a GSA spokesman said before Mr Biden's remarks.

The bipartisan National Task Force on Election Crises said on Tuesday it was "past time" for the GSA administrator to certify Mr Biden. "This isn't about politics. It's about honouring free and fair elections. It's also about lost lives."

Mr Trump claims, without giving evidence, that he was cheated out of a victory by widespread fraud, and has fired off a flurry of lawsuits that judges have mostly rejected.

An administration official said the White House was not pressuring Ms Murphy to withhold recognition of Mr Biden as the winner.

Ms Murphy is relying on precedent, her office said, citing the five-week delay after the 2000 election before Republican George W. Bush was declared the winner.

While the 2000 result hung on 537 votes in just one state - Florida - Mr Trump would need to reverse Mr Biden's large margins in three of four closely contested states, something election experts and a growing number of Republicans say is virtually impossible.

The GSA did not say how or when the decision would be made and has not responded to a congressional letter asking the same.

Trump administration sources said it was reasonable to wait until vote recounts are completed and the legal challenges resolved.

Mr Dave Barram, who was GSA administrator in 2000, said: "In 2000, there was no clear winner, and both (Al) Gore and Bush knew it. This is different. It's getting overwhelmingly evident that Trump should concede."

REUTERS