That's ascertainment!

I have a reasonably good vocabulary, but the word "ascertainment" was new to me. Sure, I knew ascertain. So I could figure ascertainment out. Still, I don't recall ever having heard the word before. Once again, the Trump Administration proves to be a rich learning experience. 

For those who've turned off the news - and who could blame them? - ascertainment is when it's known for certain that the President Elect is the President Elect. While formal certification of the election doesn't take place for a while, by tradition, once the election is called and the victor known, the outgoing administration starts co-operating with the incoming administration on the transition.

In 2000, when the election results were not "clear" until the Supreme Court weighed in, this didn't happen right away. But this time around, the results ARE clear to anyone who chooses to see. So far, Trump attempts to get in front of a court - any court - with his claims of election fraud are going nowhere. The courts have denied giving the complaints a hearing because none of them have been based on any evidence and/or because those making the claims have no standing. This is likely to continue.

It should come as no surprise that the Trump Admin can't accept reality. That's never been their strong suit. (C.f., inaugural crowd size, "I really won the popular vote in 2016", pandemic will disappear, etc.) But it sure does seem that even most of the toadies encouraging Trump with their "don't stop believin'" nonsense know that Trump has lost. Seemingly, they just want to protect his fragile ego, give him the space to deal with his emotions, or perhaps work out a deal - no Federal prosecution in exchange for not wrecking the country. (Good thing we don't negotiate with terrorists.)

So here we have the spectacle of a Trump-appointed bureaucrat refusing to set the wheels in motion for the Biden team.

This means that the incoming administration won't be given any "start up" money to cover administrative expenses, nor will they be given:

...access to government officials, office space and equipment authorized for the taxpayer-funded transition teams of the winner. (Source: WaPo)

What's on hold?

Transition officials get government email addresses. They get office space at every federal agency. They can begin to work with the Office of Government Ethics to process financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest forms for their nominees.

And they get access to senior officials, both political appointees of the outgoing administration and career civil servants, who relay an agency’s ongoing priorities and projects, upcoming deadlines, problem areas and risks. The federal government is a $4.5 trillion operation, and while the Biden team is not new to government, the access is critical, experts said.

The person holding things up is GSA Administrator Emily Murphy. She's the one who needs to sign the letter that let's things move forward. But she's hanging on to there not yet being any "ascertainment." 

Since states don't submit their final, certified results for a few weeks now, and the Electoral College doesn't convene until mid-December, this means an unnecessary holdup. If the transition team can't start fully transitioning until mid-December, they'll run smack dab into the holidays. Swell.

How typical of the Trumpians to throw a wrench in the works, to try not just to undermine the Biden Administration by convincing their fact-free audience that Biden is not the legitimately elected POTUS, but by hobbling their ability to get work done. Which in many cases is getting the shoddy work of many government agencies under Trump undone. 

“No agency head is going to get out in front of the president on transition issues right now,” said one senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The official predicted that agency heads will be told not to talk to the Biden team.

This petty BS is, of course, to be expected. But why is it that anytime Trump & Co. are given the opportunity to behave in a decent manner, they just end up thumbing their nose?

This isn't the first controversy Murphy has been involved in, as she's apparently racked up several wins as a Trump yes-woman. These, not surprisingly, involved Trump's profiteering off of the government with respect to his hotel.

The stalling tactics have implications beyond some incoming official not getting their email set up in a timely manner. The stall will get in the way of creating the rollout plan for a fair and orderly distribution of the coronavirus vaccine. (One can only imagine the distribution plan under Trump: move blue states to the bottom of the list.) The stall also has implications for national security, as any sort of confusion and undermining gives bad actors more room to maneuver.

Maybe if a few more bogus cases are tossed out, there'll be enough evidence for Murphy to decide she's seen enough, and can sign that letter of ascertainment. Then again, she might feel she needs to wait until she's heard the go-ahead in her master's voice. And that might not happen anytime soon. (I've read that Trump wants to get back out on the road, holding more of his rallies to stir things up. If John Lewis was all about making "good trouble," Trump is all about making "bad trouble," that's for sure.)

There's also the possibility that some Trump appointed judge - especially one of the many he appointed rated "unqualified" by the ABA - could take a case on and drag things out. (On the positive side, in the prime states where the results are being questioned, even Republican officials are, for the most part, discounting any claims of irregularity.)

So, to ascertain or not to ascertain?

That's ascertainment, I guess.

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Tomorrow's term for the day: faithless elector. That's a state elector who decides to ignore the winner-take-all results in their state and pull the metaphorical lever for someone else. Some Republican stalwarts (think Kenneth Starr) are calling on electors to act faithlessly. Which is what they should have done in 2016, when they could have helped keep a madman out of the Oval Office...

As if we needed another reason to despise the Electoral College.