Clyburn to GSA Head: Blocking Biden-Harris Transition During Pandemic Will Lead to Deaths of Americans

Washington, D.C. (November 23, 2020) — Today, Rep. James E. Clyburn, Chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, sent a letter to Administrator Emily Murphy of the General Services Administration (GSA) urging her to take the legally required step of ascertaining that President-elect Biden won the presidential election, in order to "enable an effective transition of power during the worst public health crisis in over a century."

"Your refusal to follow the law when the winner is so clearly apparent would be a threat to American constitutional democracy under any circumstances, but your refusal to do so at the height of a pandemic that has already killed more than 250,000 Americans is a direct threat to American lives," the Chairman wrote.

Today's letter explains that the federal government's refusal to act quickly earlier this year exacerbated the damage caused by the rapidly spreading virus. In May, public health experts told the Select Subcommittee that the federal government's failure to quickly ramp up coronavirus testing hampered efforts to control the spread of the virus. In July, Dr. Anthony Fauci testified to the Select Subcommittee that the failure to rapidly and uniformly implement public health measures in all 50 states led to a "surging" of infections in the United States. The number of U.S. coronavirus cases has now surpassed12 million, and more than 255,000 Americans have died.

The letter continued: "Your unwillingness to perform your legal duty is interfering with these preparations by delaying transition activities across the entire federal government and denying the Biden-Harris team the ability to coordinate with the departments and agencies they will lead in less than two months. The Select Subcommittee's investigations have shown what happens when the federal government responds to the pandemic without sufficient preparation and coordination—yet your actions risk a catastrophic repeat of these failures."

According to former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, one of the co-chairs of the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board, the length of transition time the incoming administration is given "will impact how effective we are at closing the testing gap, ensuring that hospitals and doctors and nurses have enough protective equipment like masks and gloves and make sure we have enough syringes and swabs to proceed with a vaccination campaign."

Quickly vaccinating tens of millions of Americans presents serious logistical challenges that can only be surmounted with close coordination between the incoming and outgoing administrations and other stakeholders—coordination that Administrator Murphy is preventing.

"Millions of Americans are counting on those of us in positions of public trust to do all we can to protect them from this virus that is currently killing more than 1,000 of our fellow Americans each day," the letter explains. "For their sake, I urge you to perform your legal duty by ascertaining that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the President-elect and Vice President-elect so that they can be fully prepared to protect the American people from this deadly virus when they take office on January 20."

Click here to read today's letter.

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