The Trump administration’s deviation from some norms as it transitioned into the White House earlier this year is now raising questions about the future of presidential transition planning.
Reflecting on the most recent White House transition, the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition argued in a new report that there is a need for bigger reforms in the transition process, particularly when it comes to transparency and security.
In its report, the Partnership, a non-profit organization that advocates for non-partisan improvements to the federal government, recommended adding more safeguards into the transition process — such as strengthening security protocols, further clarifying the transition rules, and streamlining paperwork to speed up transition planning. It also suggested amending the overarching Presidential Transition Act to incentivize transition teams to comply with standard practices.
Because transitions only occur once every four or eight years, the level of expertise around transition planning is already thin. But the Partnership said the losses to the federal workforce this year put the success of future presidential transitions at further risk.
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“Such guardrails will be particularly essential to ensure a smooth transition in 2028 because of the vast amounts of expertise being lost from government as a result of this administration’s reductions of the federal workforce,” the Partnership wrote.
During the most recent presidential transition period, Trump’s approach was unlike any prior incoming administration — including his own transition into his first term in 2016.
Leading into his second term, Trump’s transition team skirted longstanding norms by refusing to sign a standard agreement with the General Services Administration, which outlines support services such as access to office space, IT equipment and federal staff. The GSA agreement also triggers reporting requirements and limits how much money transition teams can fundraise.
By subverting standard transition procedures and timelines, the Partnership said Trump’s team created security risks and caused significant planning delays.
“This inhibited the team’s ability to prepare essential staff and enabled them to avoid disclosing transition donors, agency review team members and the use of their transition funding,” the Partnership wrote in its report.
Jenny Mattingley, vice president of government affairs at the Partnership, said the Trump transition team’s divergence from the norms signals a larger shift for the future of presidential transition planning.
“The assumption had been that the candidate would want to follow these guidelines around security clearance, find their nominees for positions, bring in transition teams — but we didn’t see that as much during this transition,” Mattingley said in a recent interview with Federal News Network. “And during the course of the last 10 or 11 months, we’ve also seen some of the things that we thought were norms, and the ways of doing business, not play out.”
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During the transition process, Trump’s team also delayed signing standard agreements to define how the incoming administration would access agencies after the election, and another agreement on security clearance requests for transition team members who needed to access classified information.
Mattingley said while the transparency in transition planning is critical, teams may want to use their own IT systems and office space, rather than accepting the government’s options. But because the GSA agreement is tied to other financial and reporting requirements, the public loses out on information about the transition process when it’s not signed, she explained.
“By not accepting those services, all of a sudden, those transparency mechanisms don’t happen,” Mattingley said. “We’re certainly seeing a changeover in those particular types of processes.”
A solution, according to the Partnership’s report, may involve changing the structure of the agency agreements, and adding updates to the Presidential Transition Act — the law that sets most standards for presidential transition planning.
Specifically, the Partnership recommended separating the agreements on office space, equipment and IT systems, splitting those from agreements on financial and ethical reporting requirements. The change would compel teams to provide transparency on their transition planning while not requiring their use of government resources or office space.
Technology modernization and the changing nature of the workplace are creating further questions around what types of resources transition teams truly need from agencies.
“Transition officials still say a physical location supports important collaboration, as well as communication with agency and congressional officials,” the Partnership wrote. “But as demonstrated by the significant transition work done virtually in 2020 and 2024, widespread embrace of hybrid work means that physical space matters less than it once did.”
The Partnership suggested eliminating the requirement for GSA-provided office space — which is funded by taxpayers, even if unused — and instead offering some level of funding for transition teams to use their preferred office space.
“Many things that we do in government were built up around norms, just ways of doing business that weren’t actually statutory,” Mattingley said. “But once norms are broken, my biggest concern is that it’s really hard to go back to adhering to a norm, unless we put a new statute, rule or some sort of guardrail in place.”
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“I do think we’re going to have to watch out for how campaigns and candidates think about approaching the transition going forward,” she added.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email drew.friedman@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11
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