Trump finally authorizes govt. to begin transfer of power to Biden
After weeks of defiance, outgoing US President Donald Trump on Monday allowed officials to proceed with a transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden, even as he refused to concede and vowed to continue fighting the election results.
Trump relented after suffering yet more legal and procedural defeats in his unsuccessful effort to overturn the election with repeated claims of voting fraud.
Trump, a Republican, said he no longer opposes government aid for his Democratic rival, his closest statement yet to finally conceding he lost the US election.
Trump made the announcement on Twitter after the head of the General Services Administration (GSA) authorized releasing the long-delayed assistance.
The GSA, an independent federal agency that must approve presidential transitions, informed Biden that he could formally begin the hand-over process.
GSA Administrator Emily Murphy said in a letter that Biden would now have access to resources that had been denied to him because of the legal challenges seeking to overturn his win.
"Our case STRONGLY continues, we will keep up the good ... fight, and I believe we will prevail! Nevertheless, in the best interest of our Country, I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same," Trump said in a tweet.
The decision frees up millions of dollars in financing to support the transition, as well as formally allows Biden to coordinate with current government officials.
Despite the move, Trump and his advisers said he would continue to pursue legal avenues, but his tweet underscored that even the White House understood it was getting close to time to depart.
Trump has spent the last three weeks since the November 3 election claiming without any evidence that Biden's convincing victory was the result of fraud.
Experts say Trump’s attempts to foment a crisis of confidence in the American political system and the US elections haven’t ended and are likely to persist well beyond his lame-duck presidency.
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