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You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - January 6, 2017
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This is the January 6, 2017, edition of an email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition, cabinet appointees, and the different policy positions of those individuals who may have had an effect on the new administration. Previous editions of "You're Hired" can be found here.
The 2016 election is officially over
Happy Friday. The 2016 election for POTUS officially ended today. Congress met in a joint session this afternoon to count the votes from the Electoral College. President-elect Donald Trump received 304 votes to Hillary Clinton’s 227. A total of 270 was needed to win. Trump was projected to receive 306 votes based on the results of the 2016 election, but two Republican electors in Texas voted for other individuals. Similarly, Clinton was projected to receive 232 votes, but five electors in Washington and Hawaii also voted for other individuals. Read more about that here. By our most recent count, the popular vote stands at 62,979,984 for Trump (46.2 percent) and 65,844,969 for Clinton (48.3 percent), a difference of about 2.8 million. If you’re interested in past instances of splits between the Electoral College and the popular vote, you should read this article.
Several Democrats in the House objected to the vote count, arguing that voter suppression and Russian interference may have affected the outcome of the election. Federal law allows for such objections, but they can only have a potential impact if an objection is signed by a member of the House and a member of the Senate. No senators signed on this year. If one or more of them had, federal law stipulates that both chambers must independently vote on whether to sustain the objection. A sustained objection could lead to some votes being thrown out and possibly even change the outcome of the election. The last time both a member of the House and a member of the Senate signed on to an objection was in 2005, when George W. Bush was elected to a second term. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Cal.) objected to the count of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes, which went to Bush, on the grounds of alleged voting irregularities on election day. The House voted 267-31 against sustaining the objection, while the Senate voted in agreement 74-1. Bush defeated Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) 286 to 251 in that election.
The election of a president takes a long time—even when you don’t factor in the actual campaign slog—and there are numerous deadlines. In this cycle, we had an election on November 8, 2016. Over the following weeks, the states worked to verify and certify their results. They had until December 13, 2016, to settle any disputes surrounding the appointment of their electors. Members of the Electoral College cast their votes on December 19, 2016. The certification of those votes had to reach the Senate by December 28, 2016. Today, January 6, 2017, Congress counted those votes and officially declared a winner.
The history of this process goes back to the contentious election of 1876 and the Electoral Count Act of 1887. If you are interested in reading more about this, the Congressional Research Service prepared a concise (though dense) report in November on the procedures behind the counting of electoral votes and why this happens the way that it does. You can access it here.
Appointments
President-elect Trump reportedly plans to name former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats as director of national intelligence (DNI). Coats retired from the Senate this year. He was most recently elected in 2010, but he also served in the Senate from 1989 to 1999 and in the House from 1981 to 1989. In his most recent stint in the Senate, he was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Coats was also the ambassador to Germany from 2001 to 2005. Rep. Todd Young, from Indiana’s ninth district, won Coats’ seat in the 2016 general election.
Trump’s selection of Coats rounds out his picks for the country’s five top national security posts. The other four are Gen. James Mattis as defense secretary, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser, Gen. John Kelly as homeland security secretary, and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) as CIA director.
What is the DNI?
The office of the DNI was created in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks with the goal of coordinating and integrating the efforts of the country’s various intelligence agencies. The DNI is the principal adviser to the president and the national security council on all security-related intelligence matters and serves as the head of the U.S. Intelligence Community, a group of 16 government intelligence agencies that includes the CIA. The position requires Senate confirmation. James Clapper is the current director.
Trump, the DNI, and the Intelligence Community
We wrote yesterday about Trump’s relationship with the U.S. intelligence community in light of the Senate hearings on Russian cybersecurity threats. This relationship has been in the spotlight over the past week, and Trump has made public comments about government intelligence agencies. On Tuesday, for example, after an intelligence briefing with Trump was rescheduled, he tweeted, “The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!” Trump has dismissed notions that his relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies are strained. Yesterday, he tweeted, “The media lies to make it look like I am against ‘Intelligence’ when in fact I am a big fan!” and in a statement today added, “I have tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation.”
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration intends to restructure the office of the DNI on the grounds that it has become “bloated and politicized,” according to anonymous sources who spoke with The Journal. Changes to the DNI and other U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly include paring down headquarters-based staff and relocating more agents to field posts around the globe.
Trump’s transition team, however, has pushed back against the report. Incoming press secretary Sean Spicer said, “there is no truth to this idea of restructuring the intelligence community’s infrastructure.”
Intelligence officials, members of Congress, and White House advisers have, in the past, advised restructuring the DNI. In 2010, for example, a White House intelligence panel recommended that the office of the DNI be streamlined. A report from the panel in June 2010 said, “The ODNI needs sufficient resources to carry out its core missions, and it must be able to respond quickly to changing priorities. However, the ODNI is not perceived as a highly focused and agile organization and has been hobbled by endless disputes over its size. The DNI should be charged with ensuring that the ODNI is as small as possible so that it is focused on strategic priorities and not distracted from its core missions.”
Where does Coats stand on intelligence, security, and foreign policy issues?
If Coats is confirmed by the Senate, he will be taking on a big job: advising a new president, overseeing multiple intelligence agencies, and dealing with an array of threats from around the globe. With that mind, we wanted to take a look at what he has said in the past about a few key issues related to the work that he might do as the new DNI.
- Russia: Coats has been a vocal critic of Russian foreign policy. In 2013, he sharply criticized Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military involvement in Ukraine, which he called illegal. The following year, Russia banned him from entering the country. Coats responded by calling the ban an honor and said sarcastically, “I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to go on vacation with my family in Siberia this summer.” He has also been critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom Trump has offered words of praise. In 2014, Coats said, “Putin’s recent aggression is unacceptable, and America must join with our European allies to isolate and punish Russia. I will continue to lead efforts on Capitol Hill to bring Putin to his senses.”
- Counterintelligence: In 2015, Coats added a provision to the Intelligence Authorization Act that called for the National Counterintelligence Executive to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. That office is responsible for countering potential threats from foreign and domestic agents within the U.S. Coats cited Edward Snowden as a chief reason for the provision, saying, “it has been two years since Edward Snowden fled to Russia, and there has been no accountability for the counterintelligence and security lapses that led to the most significant breach ever of classified information. My provision would elevate consideration of this important position to ensure counterintelligence remains a primary pillar of our national security strategy.”
- Counterterrorism and border security: In the last Congress, Coats introduced a bill called the “Counterterrorism Border Security Enhancement Act,” which he said in a press release, “would require the administration to assess how existing border security and entry procedures can be improved and strengthened.” The bill focused specifically on retooling the Visa Waiver Program, which allows citizens from close to 40 countries to travel to the U.S. without first obtaining a visa. Coats proposed implementing a system to ensure compliance with information-sharing agreements among participating countries. Trump has spoken critically of the Visa Waiver Program and made strengthening border security a key part of his 2016 campaign platform.
- Government Surveillance Programs: Coats supports the National Security Agency’s surveillance program. In 2013, his office released a statement, saying, “U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., believes secret National Security Agency programs collecting the telephone and Internet records of all Americans are needed to protect the country from terrorist attacks.” In another statement from 2015, he added, “Contrary to the irresponsible misrepresentations and false statements by some members of Congress, the federal government is not engaged in a massive surveillance program. The current program operates under strict oversight by the nation’s top federal judges, Congress and officials across several different federal agencies. There is no evidence to support accusations of abuse or unlawful spying on Americans.”
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
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