WASHINGTON -- An increasing number of Senate Republicans said Thursday that former Vice President Joe Biden should be granted access to classified briefings during the presidential transition, an acknowledgment of the election results despite President Donald Trump's refusal to concede.
Most Republicans have not acknowledged Biden's election victory, have amplified Trump's claims about widespread election fraud and have endorsed the president's legal challenges. Only four of the 53 Senate Republicans have congratulated Biden.
But several Republicans, while declining to say he won, said Thursday that Biden should be afforded some of the privileges of an incoming president.
"Well, I think that it probably makes sense to prepare for all contingencies," Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, told CNN when asked if Biden should get briefings. "And as these election challenges play out in court, I don't have a problem with, and I think it's important from a national security standpoint, continuity. And you've seen other members suggesting that. I think that makes sense."
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was specifically pressed about whether the briefing material should be the same provided to Trump in his presidential daily brief.
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"Whether he actually gets the product itself I think the information needs to be communicated in some way. I'm on the intelligence committee, we don't get the PBR but we get products, intelligence products. I think he should get the information," Cornyn said.
He added: "I just think it's part of the transition. And uh, if in fact he does win in the end, I think they need to be able to hit the ground running."
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the most senior member of the GOP, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also said Biden should receive classified briefings.
Republicans are focused on winning two January runoff elections in Georgia and holding their Senate majority as a counter to Democrats controlling the White House and the House.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, one of the four Republicans to congratulate Biden, said, "President-elect Biden should be receiving intelligence briefings right now. That is really important. It's probably the most important part of the transition."
She added that he should have access to office space, federal employees and the standard assistance given "that the apparent winner receives, and that doesn't in any way preclude President Trump from pursuing his legal remedies if he believes there are irregularities but it should not delay the transition, because we want the president-elect -- assuming he prevails -- to be ready on day one. And that's why the intelligence briefings are critical."
In the days since the race was called for Biden, Government Services Administration head Emily Murphy has refused to declare the winner of the presidential election, holding up access to computer systems and money for salaries and administrative support for the mammoth undertaking of setting up a new government.
Trump also is not allowing Biden to receive the classified presidential daily brief that is typically offered to presidents-elect so they are up to speed on major threats and ongoing operations.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who sits on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the chamber's main oversight committee, said Wednesday that he is prepared to intervene if the process to grant Biden access has not begun by a deadline set for today.
On Thursday, Lankford told reporters that Trump and Biden should continue to be provided with the intelligence to which they had access during the campaign, "for the sake of national security."
"Both sides had access to the intel information through the whole campaign; that's normal," Lankford said. He added: "We're still in the same spot we were in during the campaign -- both sides need to have access to the information, because we don't know who the president is going to be."
Biden said this week that access to classified information would be "nice to have, but it's not critical."
"Access to classified information is useful, but I won't make any decisions on those issues anyway. As I said, there's one president at a time," he said in Wilmington, Del., on Tuesday.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., referred to those comments by Biden when asked Thursday whether he believes Biden should be granted access.
"I think I kind of stand with Joe Biden," McCarthy said. "I'll trust the intel community. He's not president right now; don't know if he'll be president January 20th. But whoever is can get the information."
Other Republicans suggested that Biden should receive the same briefings that he did as a candidate.
"At this point at least I think he should absolutely be getting intelligence briefings. The briefings he's been getting as a candidate should continue. I think he should continue to get what he's been getting," said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
NATIONAL SECURITY
National security and intelligence experts cite the need for an incoming president to be fully prepared to confront any national security issues on day one.
U.S. adversaries can take advantage of the country during an American presidential transition, and key foreign issues will be bearing down on Biden the moment he steps into the Oval Office in January.
For example, unless Trump extends or negotiates a new nuclear arms accord with Russia before Inauguration Day, Biden will have only 16 days to act before the expiration of the last remaining treaty reining in the world's two largest nuclear arsenals. Perhaps U.S. spies have picked up tidbits about the Russians' red lines in the negotiations or about weapons it really wants to keep out of the treaty.
That's the type of information that might be in the daily summary of high-level, classified information and analysis on national security issues that's been offered to presidents since 1946.
Having access to it also could help Biden craft a possible response to North Korea, which has a history of firing off missiles or conducting nuclear tests shortly before or after a new president takes office.
Biden has decades of experience in foreign affairs and national security. But he probably has not been privy to the latest details about how Iran is back to enriching uranium or the active cyberattack operations of Russia, China and Iran. China's crackdown on Hong Kong is heating up. The threat from Islamic extremists still remains.
The 9/11 Commission Report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks warns of the danger in slow-walking presidential transition work in general, not just the intelligence piece. The George W. Bush administration didn't have its deputy Cabinet officers in place until the spring of 2001 and critical subcabinet positions were not confirmed until that summer -- if then, the report said.
"President-elect Joe Biden and his transition team should not suffer a similar delay," John Podesta, who served as White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, and Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card wrote this week in The Washington Post. "We have since learned the serious costs of a delayed transition."
Information for this article was contributed by Felicia Sonmez, Mike DeBonis and Annie Linskey of The Washington Post; and by Deb Riechmann, Mary Clare Jalonick, Aamer Madhani and Will Weissert of The Associated Press.
