Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to another Miller Center webinar. Im going to moderate todays conversation and it is a real pleasure to be with you all and have these terrific guests. Actpresident ial transition was adopted by congress in 1963 to provide statutory framework for the peaceful transfer of power. It has been updated several times since. We are going to discuss rising issues coming out of that in the current transition and transfer. It has been almost a week since most Major Networks designated joe biden as president elect. The biden team has been moving forward on a transition and selected a new white house chief of staff, have launched a Pandemic Task force, and soon will be announcing other white house and cabinet level positions. Theyve started conversations with foreign heads of state and a number of american political leaders. A small but growing number of senior Republican Leaders have acknowledged the outcome of the election, including former president bush, his chief of staff andy card, counselor karl rove, and a handful of republican senators. And yet, we still have not had a formal concession by President Trump. That may be a personal matter of his continuing to file legal claims in a number of states, but by not conceding, he has also held up a formal ascertain ascertain should ascertainment, sorry. Of when the beginning of transfer of power should begin. President trump and his administration not transferring knowledge and knowhow and technology and real estate to the incoming chief. Incoming team. How big a problem is this . How important is it that this happen now . When does it need to start . When should it start by law and what are the consequences of the delay . Those are some of the questions we will address today with a terrific panel. We are joined today by Michael Chertoff, who served as secretary of Homeland Security under president george w. Bush from 2005 to 2009. Before heading up dhs, mr. Chertoff served as a federal judge on the u. S. Court of appeals for the third circuit. Earlier during more than a decade as a federal prosecutor, he invested and prosecuted cases of political corruption, organized crime, corporate fraud, and terrorism, including the investigation of the 9 11 terrorist attacks. He is now cofounder and executive chairman of the chertoff group, a Risk Advisory Risk Management advisory service. Janet napolitano is professor of Public Policy at the Golden School of Public Policy at uc berkeley. She served as the 20th president of the university of california, the nations largest Public Research university. Prior to joining the university of california, professor napolitano served as secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 2 to 2013. Shes a former twoterm governor of arizona and former u. S. Attorney for arizona. In 2019, napolitano published how safe are we Public Security since 9 11. She earned her bs degree at Santa Clara University and her law degree from the university of virginia. Finally, Dave Marchick is a retired executive from the Carlyle Group who worked at the state department. He is serving in a volunteer role as director for the center of president ial transition and t the partnership for Public Service. He is also an adjunct at the tuck school of business at art must. He spent 12 years at the Carlyle Group where he served as managing director and global head of external affairs and led carlyles regulatory and Government Affairs communication and branding and sustainability efforts. We are delighted to have this terrific group. Let me start with this stalled gsa determination or the ascertainment. What is that and why does it matter . Let me start with dave since the center for president ial transitions plays a role in connecting transitions for a couple of cycles. Dave, give us a sense of what this ascertainment is and what are they trying to ascertain, and what happens when it happens . Dave thank you, bill and thank you to the Miller Center. Let me give a salute to Michael Chertoff, who i have known from the Holocaust Museum and also to secretary napolitano. I wish you were still president of the university of california because im on the board at ucsd , but more importantly, my daughter is at berkeley and i would like her to check in on how her studies are going. Maybe she still has that influence. Bill, you struggled with the word ascertainment because it is not supposed to be a word that is commonly known because the issue of ascertaining the winner of an election has never been controversial, never been politicized. There is a provision in the 1963 president ial transition act which gives the gsa administrator the responsibility of ascertaining the outcome of the election. There are many other Government Agencies that have similar responsibilities to act when there is a new president elect. The secret service on saturday morning significantly expanded their protection around president elect biden because he was going to be president elect biden. So that was not a politicized decision, the secret service just did that. Unfortunately, even the most noncontroversial ministerial acts in this world, in this town are being politicized today and this is one of them. The subject, the criteria is that basically the outcome is clear and the outcome is clear. All the networks have called the election, as you said in your piece from last sunday, four states would have to be turned over, the likelihood of a recount changing the outcome is almost zero. Even president bush stated in his own statement that the outcome is clear and so, we will get into this, but the gsa should make this ascertainment and then the biden team should be able to get access to all the support which we can talk about some more. Bill let me bring in mr. Chertoff and miss napolitano into this conversation. Because i do think the first thing that should be on peoples mind in a peaceful transfer is who is watching the home front . Is there something in these two months that poses a threat to the American People and how is that being managed in this cap . Gap, and does the ascertainment hold the protection of the American People up . Chertoff i can go first. I think there are two things creating risk from a security standpoint. First of all, having a transition that begins right away. Getting clearances for the incoming team, giving president elect access to current intelligence, these are all part of the process of preparing so that when the new administration comes in, they can hit the ground running and not have to then figure out what the threats are and what the capabilities to respond are. We can talk a little later about how we did the handoff from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration because that was very much in the front of our minds and we worked very cooperatively across both the outgoing and incoming folks, to make sure we fully briefed the people coming in with president obama, how they had access to intelligence information and we even ran an exercise about a potential pandemic so they could really get a feel for how things would work in the levers of government. There is another compounding problem. We are seeing a purge of security personnel. We have seen the department of defense decapitated. There is rumor about dhs having people fired or being forced to resign and that exacerbates the problem because it means in this window of time when our foreign and domestic adversaries could perceive weakness and opportunity, we are signaling we are dropping our guard and that is a very risky thing to do and it holds the American People hostage. Secretary napolitano . Sec. Napolitano yeah, i dont have much to add. I was going to emphasize first the need to have a smooth handoff from a National Security perspective and not to have any kind of a gap. We are fortunate that the president elect has so much experience that even with this delay, he will be able to catch up quickly, but nonetheless, this is an unnecessary risk that President Trump is putting on the country. And secondly, michaels comment about the removal of department of defense personnel and their replacement by political loyalists, President Trump, two key personnel at the department of Homeland Security resigned yesterday according to the washington post. These are troublesome moves from key departments necessary to protect the security of the American People. So if you were to ask me whats the greatest risk factor confronting the United States today, i would say the greatest risk factor is actually President Trump. Bill i would like to pivot off that to start focusing a little bit on when we might get the ascertainment so the biden team can have access to intelligence and can start processing security clearances. Typically, as we saw in the last transfer to President Trump or, as secretary chertoff mentioned, the transition from bush to obama, the ascertainment happened relatively quickly. In 2004, it didnt happen right away. It only happened after the recount. So dave, im curious to get from you and to hear from secretary chertoff and napolitano what might trigger the ascertainment in the days ahead . Where are you looking and what are you seeing . Is it simply the mounting calls from Republican Leaders and legislators . Is there something that can happen in the counting of ballots and certification of the states . Dave its a little unclear to me what the trigger will be. The trigger should have been made last week when the outcome was clear. That is the standard under the law. I do think there is a significant shifting of political opinion on this and perhaps that growing, snowballing impact will have an impact. You are seeing more and more republicans in the senate and in the governors saying we should get this going. In the last few days, you had governor dewine, governor hutchison, governor sununu these are not never trumpers. Obviously, dewine comes from a state, secretary napolitano knows politics better than i will ever learn but he comes from a state trump has dominated and is not a never trumper. Obviously, in arkansas, trump has been very popular and having governor hutchinson say what he said i think is very important. In the congress, i think you see growing concern from republican senators, particularly on the Armed Services and intelligence committees. I also think there is growing awareness of the nonSecurity Risks, which i think is greatest which i think michael and janet articulated the Security Risk. But to me, the most important thing in the world is the pandemic. The Trump Administration should get credit for developing something called operation warp speed, which is a joint hhs, dod effort to develop and distribute the vaccine. One would think every american would want the incoming biden team to have access and starting to coordinate with the people responsible for operation warp speed so that when the biden team takes office on january 20, they can move forward to get that vaccine in the arms of 300 million people. That is not a policy issue, that is a logistics issue and one would think that would make sense. I think there is a growing, snowballing effect because people are being educated, the risks of not moving forward and grow every day and i am hopeful this can move in the right direction very shortly. Bill im going to ask our team to put up a slide here developed by daves partnership for Public Service and to get secretary chertoff and napolitano i dont know if you knew this was coming but this is an assessment in year four of the Trump Administration of the various cabinet agencies and how many key positions have been filled. The darker turquoise line lists how many confirmed officials in key slots. There is a slightly lighter shade of turquoise which is how many have been nominated. We put in blue boxes the far assessment of the five key agencies if there is a National Security crisis and there is a sixth agency which is equally critical, but we highlighted it in red because in the current moment, it is so understaffed. I would like to get reflections from you, how important is it to fill these positions quickly, particularly when there is a crisis that is ongoing. How do some of these agencies Work Together in addressing the crisis or any other crisis that is out there . What does the next few months look like in terms of filling these positions . Sec. Chertoff ironically, the problem usually is in an whonistration are people are confirmed leave go on to their next job, so you often find vacancies in the last month or two. The irony here is the positions were never filled. So its not a question of people leaving. Its a question of people not arriving. We have seen particularly with Homeland Security is the actions of confirmed positions have made it very difficult for the agency to carry out its mission. Across a spectrum of issues. It made it difficult for the agency to deal with the pandemic and take a leadership role that was originally envisioned by the National Response framework and that both i occupied and janet occupied when we had the office. It has also created a feeling of creeping politicization as the white house staff has increasingly seen vacancies as an opportunity to micromanage the departments in the political interest of the president and that has created a trust deficit. Much of the story of this last administration and the next couple of months is a disdain for the workings of government and the efficient carrying out of government missions. Its almost as if it is a determination they want to wreck government and make it as hard as possible to do its job so they can say see, people in government are bad. The problem is that leaves a lot of people dead, as we have seen with the virus. Bill as the new team comes in, the importance of confirming people will the biden people just put people in acting positions to just get started and get away with it or is it important to go back to the confirmation standard, particularly when there is a crisis going . Sec. Chertoff i would say this i believe the biden team will honor the traditional norm of getting people confirmed. That depends upon the senate cooperating. If you get a senate that blocks everything, that creates a different set of problems, but im hoping cooler heads in the Republican Party will cooperate with getting people confirmed in the normal course. I also need to be candid at some point, congress has to revisit the appointment vacancy process which was abused over the last four years and may need to be tightened up. Sec. Napolitano one example is when we had the transition from president bush to president obama, a number of us on the Security Side of the cabinet, theres a luncheon in statuary hall in the capital immediately after the inaugural ceremony and the senate went into session and they immediately confirmed a number of members of the obama cabinet, particularly those on the Security Side of the cabinet. So we were actually confirmed as we were watching the inaugural parade go by. That is how two branches of government can cooperate with each other and that is how you help effectuate a smooth transition of power. Bill between now and then, its a great segue to the importance of the confirmation process. What happens when someone gets confirmed and what happens between now and then . Dave this gets back to ascertainment because this cant go forward. Ron klain, who has been designated as chief of staff, he cannot get his final security clearance until he has been ascertainment. He can get an interim but he cannot get a final. What happens is the president elect will start naming his team, presumably in the next week, typically it is done in waves. They bunch the National Security professionals, the economic people, the Health Professionals i assume those will be the top priorities. Then they start to name the people underneath. Heres why, again, ascertainment is so important. I will give you the data. President obama, in his first 100 days, had twice as many people in their seats as president bush. The bush team had a great team. They were experienced. Vice president cheney led the transition. He and john podesta are probably the two most experienced transition People Living because they have been involved in four or five transitions each. The bush personnel operation was buttoned up, but they could not get every thing processed quickly. The security clearances, the ethics agreements, working with the Agency Ethics officials on the extremely painful process of divestments, disclosures, recusals, all of those things with michael and janet presumably remember from their process. It is an enormous amount of work to even get the package up to the senate and it is an enormous start that cant even until ascertainment. Whats important is to get those people in their seats quickly. It took bush until year one to get 500 plus. Obama had a little less than 500 at the end of the first year. It takes a long time and the faster those can get going, the faster you can get people in their seats, the better the American Public is served. We have four crises right now. Whether you like biden or you dont like biden, america would benefit from having highly competent people in their seats in the National Security agencies, the Health Agencies as , in the economic agencies as quickly as possible and it is exactly as secretary chertoff and secretary napolitano said, get them in their seats quickly. Bill audience members are starting to ask questions. If you are inside the zoom, please send the questions through the q a function. Ill curate and post them. What happened in 2000 when you contested election that dragged on until december 12 . When did the security briefings begin . Can security briefings begin without the certification of the gsa . Dave the answer is yes. There, president clinton and john podesta did the appropriate thing. Which was, even though the election was contested, it was an entirely different factual circumstances. There were 537 votes in one state, that state determined the outcome. Entirely different factual circumstances. Here, we have probably 306 electoral votes, three states, trump needs to in pennsylvania and georgia and biden is ahead by 50,000 plus and growing, so its an entirely different factual circumstance. Regardless, president clinton authorized governor bush to receive the president daily brief, which is the highest level intelligence briefing possible, even during the recount. Bill secretary chertoff, you served in the bush years. How much within that administration i know the experience of president bush s first year was slowed by florida we are putting up the vote totals in florida in 2000 compared to 2016 and a couple of other close elections. That close election and that first year for president bush shaped his view of how to do his own transition. Just within administration, was their legend and lore about this . How did people in the administration think of that first year and how did it affect their view of the transition to president obama . Sec. Chertoff as i think was pointed out, the biggest change in a way was getting people processed through the ethics checks, background checks, and ultimately confirmed. I believe i was confirmed as head of the Criminal Division in june of 2001, six months after the inauguration. Others came in later. I was in the department of justice on 9 11 and we were shorthanded in terms of senior people. The ag was confirmed, the deputy, i was confirmed, bob mueller had been in the job for one week. We had to essentially do double and triple duty to pick up some of the responsibilities that normally would have been taken by others who were confirmed. I think the clear sense we got, and it was reaffirmed by the 9 11 commission is that it is a Security Risk to not have the process go right away because there are so many threats out there that you need to get people up to speed. Because our enemies dont wait until we have had a year to settle in. They are ready to launch on day one if they can get away with it. That is compounded, as we said earlier, by the fact that we are already under assault by a virus. If we were to get a vaccine approved and deployed early next year, again, there has to be visibility into what the plans are and what the capabilities are. If that is delayed, that means delaying getting the virus from into peoples hands, that means people die. Thats why the issue of transition is not just about a bureaucratic shuffle, but it is literally are you going to play russian roulette with the lives and safety of the American People . Bill another question from the audience is can the potus block the gsa from releasing its ascertainment decision . If so, what is likely to happen . In other words, can the head of the gsa that has to make this ascertainment simply do it by herself . Dave she can. I will leave to others to speculate what the president might do. Let me tell you a little about gsa and comment on this. Head of the gsa is traditionally not a highly political person. They are focused on effectiveness and government. Emily murphy is a procurement expert. She worked on the hill for many years. Shes a procurement expert. Im sure shes sitting there wondering how the heck did i get in this position . What is clear in the statute is that she has the independent authority. The statute is a continuity of government statute, the fairness in government statute. There are multiple provisions in the statute that require the gsa to coordinate with other agencies, including the white house. The provision on ascertainment vests that authority with the gsa administrator alone. We host a podcast called Transition Lab at the Partnership Public service. Earlier this week, we had the gsa administrator from 2000 on. Hes a former apple executive, cfo, again, not a very political person. He focused on getting procurement better in the government and found himself in this position. He said that throughout the entire 2000 recount, he never had any pressure from the white house, that he had many briefings with john podesta, john podesta made it clear was his decision and his decision alone, and it is a gsa decision. Hopeful its totally independend hopefully she can make it soon. Bill let me ask secretaries chertoff and napolitano. We focused a lot on covid. In previous transition, what are some of the other things Homeland Security is focused on . What might happen in the next two months, both while the transition itself is happening, while people are peering to come in, and in the first few weeks of the administration . What are people looking for . Sec. Chertoff let me begin by saying, we had a few things in our transition. One, we were worried about terrorism because this was going to be the first change in Administration Since we had experienced september 11. And of course, we were in combat in afghanistan and iraq. Ofthere were a whole set security issues. We were worried about a pandemic. I think it was avian flu was a threat circulating around and we actually put together an exercise so that the incoming team could really get a feel for what the levers are that you could use if you have to deal with a pandemic. We were concerned about potential violence and terrorism with respect to the inauguration itself. There was, in fact, some remembers, some intelligence that suggested there is going to be a terrorist attack from jihadis on the inauguration. It turned out happily that that was a false alarm, but we were sufficiently validated to take it seriously. All of this is part of what you face in the runup to the inauguration and immediate time after the inauguration. Sec. Napolitano i remember michael calling me to let me know this intelligence threat and we discussed the day of the inaugural itself and the need to have continuity in leadership in case something were to occur. We agreed between us that even though i might be confirmed on the day of the inauguration, i would not take the oath for a day or two after to make sure the threat stream had been cured and that is indeed what happened. That is what can happen when you have a cooperative transition. When i was named, i was serving as the governor of arizona and i was just not able to keep flying back and forth to washington, so michael sent leadership from the department of Homeland Security out to phoenix. They probably enjoyed getting out to some warm, sunny weather that time of year. But nonetheless, and then they had quite extensive briefing materials prepared for me and for my team. So that we could review those as we undertook to take over what is the thirdlargest department of the federal government. As michael said, there were some joint exercises sponsored by the Bush Administration where i did go back and they had bush people and obama people who had the same roles, sitting at the same tables so they could talk about what would happen if this were to occur, what would be the next step, that sort of thing. There was every effort and it was led by the top and i give president bush credit for this. He set the tone and the direction for that kind of cooperative transition and really, i think the Gold Standard in terms of president ial transitions. President obama, as he was transitioning to President Trump, had given the same direction to his administration and had used bushs transition as an example, directed materials be prepared, directed that there be that Agency Personnel be made available, directed that every cooperation should be extended to the trump team. Unfortunately, the trump team did not really take them up on it. It really takes two to tango here. You need the outgoing and incoming to really Work Together. Bill its a great segue to answer alan henchs question, who asked did the trump ministration contact the Letter Center during the transition . We had a first year project. Just to echo and amplify what secretary napolitano said there were three different trump Transition Teams. There was the Transition Team under Chris Christie and chris that was put in place until election day, that Chris Christie was famously fired the day after the election. A new transition was set up under Vice President pence in washington, where we had pretty effective cooperation. But then, people in washington refer to people at the tower and trump tower in new york that were running the transition, so there were actually two transitions during the trump team, and none of them were i think effectively coordinating with one another. I want to go to a question from tracy tony. One thing i was struck in that transition process, thanks to the partnership for Public Service, we had a number of pre transition meetings with different groups, was the enormous presence of Information Technology consulting firms, ibm and others, that focus on quite literally the technological machinery of government and how it gets updated every four years or eight years. So tracy asks are there Information Security and technology handoff precautions in place such that accounts and passwords get passed on are not sabotaged by insiders are these policies hardened against issues like turbulent transitions or let me add Foreign Espionage or foreign interference . Dave im happy to take part of that, but i think secretary chertoff or napolitano would be better than me on the i. T. Security. Michael is one of the worlds greatest experts on Information Security, so i will defer to him. The transition act vests a huge amount of authority with career essentials in the government. The act has been amended multiple times and in the 2020 amendments, which President Trump signed, there were two words that were added and thats that the people in charge of transition activities in each agency are career officials. So those career officials, we have been working with them throughout the cycle and we have actually worked closely with the Trump White House throughout the cycle and to their credit, they did a very good job. They were buttoned up. They were very professional and they implemented the law up until this whole politicization of the ascertainment. But the career officials, i think they are ready, they are prepared, their briefing materials are set, their i. T. Work is ready and they just need the green light to get going. I would also add one other cost of ascertainment. The biden team still does not have a dot gov system. If you email them, they are still on a dot org system. And so, one would think it would be in the United States interest to have them on a secure platform provided by the government under the president ial transition act. Let me defer to michael on the second part of the question. Sec. Chertoff it is ironic after all the complaining of Hillary Clinton using the private server to communicate on government business, the administration would not take the steps necessary to rule out allow the president elect and his team to have a Government Secured Network for their governmentrelated work. I think david is right. Career officials will do their best to manage a smooth transition and under the best of circumstances, moving from one group to another group in terms of making sure you adequately change passwords and brief everybody on security issues, that is very challenging. When you get to the white house, you may run into a different issue, which is whether there is some resentment or payback in which the white house deliberately doesnt cooperate or even worse yet, drops their guard and allows vulnerabilities to be inserted into the i. T. Network. So frankly, if i was part of the Incoming Administration in cybersecurity, i would be very careful before people logged on to the white house to make sure i had done a very thorough scrub of what is lurking on the network on january 20. Bill secretary napolitano, do you want it on this one . Sec. Napolitano no, i think michael called it right. Bill so were going to ask a question for those in the zoom do you think President Trump is justified in delaying results the transition process until challenges to the Election Results are worked through . While you all are answering the question on your screens, im curious to come back to the issue a number of people have asked what legal avenues are available to the biden team to force the ascertainment . What can the public do to increase their own, have their own voices heard in this process . There are a number of people asking. As you can see, 97 dont think the president is justified. For those who do not feel it is justified, what can and should they do . Dave i think what they should do is listen to more Miller Center webinars. I think what you have done to educate and inform is having an impact. I think you are seeing that in the senate of the United States where more and more republicans are coming out, particularly those who are security oriented, and saying that it is clear. And i think the more people know the standard for the gsa making this nonpolitical decision is whether the outcome of the election is clear. For that, let me hijack your program, bill, because i want to get you to talk about this question because you wrote a piece that was out and has been widely quoted in the national press, which basically looked at the 59 president ial elections in the history of the United States to rank those and say is this a close election . I think you said there were four elections in the history of the United States that were too hard to call and this doesnt come close. Bill, im going to pretend moderating and kick it to you. Bill im going to ask the team to put the slide back up that shows the various counts. Essentially, we have had one election similar to this one and its the one that just happened four years ago where President Trump won, and what we listed in 2020 and 2016 are the Tipping Point states, what it would take to change the Electoral College map and outcome. In each case, it would take three states. President trump, in order to win this election, would have to flip three of the four states, 2020, arizona, georgia, wisconsin or pennsylvania. Ev stands for electoral votes. So to go with arizona and 306 withhe current arizona and georgia currently sitting in president elect bidens camp, in order for him to fall from 306 to below 270, theres one scenario where it falls to 269269 and then goes to the house of representatives. But even there, they have to lose three of those four states and as in 2016, President Trump would have had to lose all three of those states for Hillary Clinton to win. The three closest elections to this were 2000, 1976, and 1960. If you go back to 1876, there were four states required, but even there, it was for states and as a percentage, the vote totals were bigger in those four states and that lasted several months. But in these cases, 2000, 1976, and 1960, the loser saw those margins and conceded the following day. So what i argue in the piece is by historical standards, the only thing that comes close to this on a loser not accepting the results of the election was 1860, when seven states seceded from the union because Abraham Lincoln won a pretty convincing Electoral College victory. Dave are you saying 1860 is not a good model for us . Bill living in one of the reformed states of one of the former confederacy and two blocks away from the robert e. Lee statue, i think President Trump should be looking at statues of robert e. Lee and Jefferson Davis and others. He has a huge fan base out there that want to build statues to him, but the clearest and easiest way to get those torn down is to try to undermine the legitimacy of the institutions of the United States. Thats what i argue in the piece and i feel that strongly. This is quite a radical move the president is making. Its not a close election. I mean, it is certainly close in the last 50 years, its one of the five closest, but it is probably the fifth closest in the last 50 years. A few questions im the least important guest in todays panel. We have about 18 minutes left and as you are looking forward, when do you think things start to move . When do you think things need to start to move . Secretary chertoff, at the beginning, yousaid theres a lot going on and its not essential right now but is it next week, is it the week after . When should security briefings happen for the president elect, the Vice President elect, their chiefs of staff, key cabinet members . When should security clearances start being issued for those folks . Sec. Chertoff let me make it clear that i dont think it wasnt important that it starts happening. It should have started happening yesterday. Thelonger that goes by, greater the damages. The biden team is largely composed of people who have a lot of experience, so they at least have a feel for government. That being said, the delays in these processes, which under the best of circumstances are timeconsuming and challenging are simply meaning we are going to be at greater and greater risk as the transition approaches the inauguration. This should have started, certainly at the beginning of this week. After the dust settled a couple of days after the election. Sec. Napolitano one point i would make is theres nothing that precludes starting the transition process while the litigation and challenges are going on. That can continue. President trumps litigation plan can continue, but the nuts and bolts of the transition can already get started. Dave i think that is very well said. I just want to jump in. I think that is a perfect position. I think thats what you are seeing from republicans in the senate, which is they are not out there saying President Trump does not have the right to pursue his litigation, even though the likelihood of that outcome according to experts is almost zero, of changing the election, but they are saying exactly was secretary napolitano said get going with the rest of it while the election stuff is sorted out. I think thats a well said position and that is the emerging position of republicans in the senate. Bill im going to ask secretaries chertoff and napolitano to take off their hats and put on their federal prosecutors hat. Theres a growing set of conversations reported in major newspapers at the president is encouraging people to think about getting state legislatures involved in overturning the state votes. Im curious both as a legal matter, your read of that, and as a political matter, is that allowed . What would that take . And is it a wise course of action . And is the president entitled to seek that . Michael, do you want to go first . Sec. Chertoff ok, so the answer is the president is not entitled to seek it. It is legally very dubious to have a legislature overrule the voters because the rule is under federal law, the election and the vote has to occur on election day or by election day, and changing the rules after the fact would violate that title of federal law. I also think it would be very difficult politically. I know the Pennsylvania Legislature has already said they are not going to do that. I think it would be political suicide to say we are going to take this away from the voters and create some kind of dirty deal. If they give it to donald trump. Sec. Napolitano let me just chime in. We had an election. The election was november 3. The votes that were eligible to be counted have been counted, as we know, many were counted after november 3 because of the heavy mailin voting this election. Nonetheless, valid votes. For a legislature to come in after the fact and redo an election, holding our democracy to themselves as opposed to the voters, is just wrong as a matter of law and as a matter of politics. I think people would react quite badly to a legislature that tried to do that. Bill we put up our subway map to the white house. This is one that are graphic artist Dave Courtney pulled together. Theres a green line that goes from election day to independence day. That is the express train that moves quickly through the votes state certification of votes and Electoral College voting. What you see on this map as you move to the west is the courts getting involved and thats the state President Trump is bringing, trying essentially to slow the train down and put it into a local map. So secretaries napolitano and chertoff, thinking back from your legal perspective, as you have seen those cases come forward, do you see anything in there that has merit or is likely to be a stalled train at one of those stations that slows things down . Sec. Napolitano no. [laughs] i will just say it that way. Sec. Chertoff i agree, no. Bill lets assume if the train turns back to the blue line than the green line, then the Electoral College convenes and votes, and there has been some speculation this could get thrown into the house and senate. I know this is a bit of a pop quiz without any homework assignment for you to, but two, but how much do you worry about that . That when the Electoral College convenes, members of the house and senate might challenge the findings of the Electoral College . Sec. Chertoff i dont think there is a legal basis to do that. I mean, if there were an issue about a particular delegation, that would go to congress to determine, which of the two competing delegations is the correct one. But as we discussed with the legislature, i dont see the legislatures coming up with an alternative slate. So then, the only issue is Congress Gets to weigh in if someone doesnt have 270 votes. So for some reason you had 269269, given the math, thats not going to happen here. So its just going to be a ministerial act on the part of congress. Bill i want to go to a question from the audience what is the risk the current im sorry, weve already asked that one. Someone else had a question of what if the president simply refuses to leave . I know this seems so extreme and so odd, but so much that we have seen in the last four years has seemed so odd and im curious to get your take on that. Sec. Napolitano i would assume the u. S. Marshals would be sent to the white house with a warrant of eviction. [laughs] and have to remove him. But i dont think that will happen. Sec. Chertoff i have a suspicion hes going to go to maralago over christmas and he may not come back to the white house. He may camp down there and create his alternative white house. Hes not talking about 2024, so i dont think thats a real expectation. Sec. Napolitano i just wanted to chime in that there is no requirement that a sitting president attend the inauguration of his successor. We all remember john adams in 1800 kind of flood washington, fled washington, d. C. In the dark of night the night before Thomas Jefferson, university of virginia founder, Thomas Jefferson was to be inaugurated. There have been a few other examples since then. It is a matter of norm, particularly in the modern era, it is a matter of grace, but i for one dont expect that from this president. Bill dave, how robust were the efforts reviewing transition materials by the Incoming Trump appointees during the 2016 . Secretary napolitano touched on ,but there are some senior Trump Officials who were very involved in planning the romney transition, so not just in 2016, but preparing for this transition prior to election day, can you talk about some of the professionalism that exists within the Trump Administration . I think that sometimes, we have a feeling that it is all a monolith, but we are seeing various shades of different types of people in the administration. Can you reflect on that . Dave sure, well, we are a nonpartisan organization. We worked closely with the Chris Christie team. Chris christie and his righthand person, the chief of staff to him, a lawyer, a very buttoned up princeton grad. A,dont think he got into uv otherwise he would have gone there. They did a really good job. They consulted with democrats and republicans. You know, i think the spirit with which you see this conversation between secretaries chertoff and napolitano is very consistent with the tradition of transitions, which is secretary chertoff, he has been a tough guy on the republican side. He investigated whitewater and was the head of the Criminal Division and worked collaboratively with secretary napolitano on president bushs instructions. So we have actually seen, up until the election, very professional work in the Trump Administration in the white house, at the gsa, throughout the agencies, that they have taken implementation of the law seriously and, unfortunately, that has been moved to the side. There are people that have taken this very seriously and i hope they get the chance to do so soon. Bill lisa asks what connection do you see between the firings of top senior officials like the secretary of defense and subsequent resignations and the smooth transfer . From your various perspectives in career positions, not just from Homeland Security, but including from some Homeland Security, how significant is that . How worried are you about what has happened at the Defense Department . Sec. Napolitano there are lots of things to be concerned about there, but one is once the actual transition begins to occur, that the new acting secretary of defense is not going to know very much because he will have just gotten there himself. So there is not a lot he can educate the incoming secretary about. It does actually interfere with the content of transition amongst other things. Sec. Chertoff heres an irony. Somebody like secretary esper who has just met could meet with the incoming designated secretary of defense. While there would be an inability to discuss classified matters, there could be a sharing of general institutional information. One thing about the forced exodus of senior people from the Trump Administration is they are no longer in the position where they have to wait for gsa ascertainment. So i would be willing to bet a considerable amount that the biden people will be reaching out forth with if they havent already, to set up those discussions. Sec. Napolitano i think you are probably right, michael. Bill please, jump in here. I was just going to say, from our perspective, as part of this project, we did a detailed focus on National Security transition s and there are a lot of firstyear crises. The first year crisis of bay of pigs is one where the Eisenhower Administration had been planning the invasion of cuba. President kennedy came in and changed a few features of that and it led to a disaster and in some ways, thats what happened with black hawk down in 1993, when the Bush Administration had begun a peacekeeping exercise in mogadishu, somalia. The clinton team came in and were new and green and understood some parts of the operation. They made a few changes. Whether those changes would have been made by the bush team were uncertain. But in the first months of a green administration, they made a mistake and it led to disaster. And we know about 9 11. Sec. Chertoff we dont know whether in the next 60 days, the Trump Administration is going to take steps overseas that create a new set of challenges, whether its a premature pulling out of afghanistan and the region, whether it is steps that were to exacerbate tensions with iran. So we may very well have a repeat of those instances. Bill im glad you chimed in there. I also would love your take, and secretary napolitano and daves take on president bidens conversation with foreign leaders. Some has been written about that, but they are not managed by the state department. Your own thoughts on that . Dave let me jump in on this. This is another important point. The best practice was set in the bushobama transition. Bush had a shortened transition, a hard time getting his people in place, than eight months later, 9 11. This burned him for his entire presidency. Not burned him physically, but its something that stuck with him throughout his presidency and he basically said i want to have the smoothest outgoing transition to whoever wins, mccain or obama. So obama wins. Secretary rice and steve hadley, again, consistent with what Michael Chertoff said, said we are going to create the Gold Standard. You have the state Operations Center available, you have access to interpreters, we will brief you, we will coordinate, and obama and biden said thats great because theres only one president at a time and we dont want to interfere with what you are doing through january 20. Lets coordinate our messaging, thank you for the technology support, the calls were placed, the interpreter supported it, and they were done in a secure manner. None of that is happening. How does that serve the United States to hold that up . Sec. Napolitano i do want to emphasize again, and i know the biden team really understands this, which is that there is only one president at a time, and so while they have been getting incoming congratulatory congratulatory calls, i am sure they are being extraordinarily careful about not getting into matters of policy. The biden team is doing what they should be doing. They are pros in this. They are being very careful. It would be better if they had the full support of the state department and state department technology. Sec. Chertoff no doubt. Sec. Napolitano no doubt. Bill secretary chertoff, we have a minute left, so i will give you comments before we sign off. Any final thoughts . Sec. Chertoff i will say this. We have a resilient system. There was a lot of legitimate concern before the election that there would be a disruption in voting or disruption of counting. None of that happened. We had a record turnout. It has been a very smooth electoral process. And that is because we have a lot of people, unsung heroes, from the citizens who voted up through state and local officials to federal officials at my old agency who are doing their jobs, and that is the strength of america. We will weather this. We have to put our heads down and be determined. Bill i think that is the exactly the right note to end on and i am appreciative of all three of you not just for joining us, but for all the work you are doing. I may have mentioned at the outset that secretaries chertoff and napolitano, along with secretaries ridge and johnson and other republican and democratic former Homeland Security advisors have put together this citizens for safe democracy, and we are delighted to partner with them and the center for president ial transitions at the partnership for Public Service. I want to thank all of them. I want to thank our audience for joining us in the zoom and through cspan. I want to thank the sponsors at the Miller Center and their democracy Practice Fund and the whole Miller Center team. We will see you soon. Thank you so much. Announcer use your mobile devices, laptop or phone and go for easy. Org election access to Election Results, the balance of power in congress, our latest videos on the transition of power. Go to cspan. Org election. Announcer you are watching cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. This week on the communicators
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