BALTIMORE (AP) — Hillary Clinton officially began planning for her White House on Wednesday, tapping campaign chairman John Podesta and long-time aide Minyon Moore to prepare her transition planning effort.
In paperwork filed with the District of Columbia, Clinton formed a new non-profit, called the Clinton-Kaine Transition Fund, taking one of the first formal steps to plan for the possibility of becoming president. The filing comes after weeks of meetings between the White House and representatives of Trump and Clinton’s campaigns.
On Friday, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough informed the campaigns that that Trump and Clinton are now eligible to receive intelligence briefings from the government and government-provided workspace for transition planning. Traditionally, the outgoing administration helps potential successors with their planning to ensure a smooth transition.
In May, Trump tapped New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to lead his transition team. Podesta will be president of Clinton’s effort and Moore will be secretary, though she has not yet named a chair of her transition operation. Instead, she has dispatched campaign policy aides Ed Meier, Ann OLeary and Sara Latham, Podesta’s chief of staff, to the White House meetings.
Much of Clinton’s transition team’s effort will be focused on creating lists of potential administration appointees and developing a roadmap for her policy agenda.
Bipartisan legislation signed in 2010 requires the government to provide office space, computers and technological support for both candidates.
Four years ago, Republican nominee Mitt Romney began his transition planning in early June, installing hundreds of people in a multi-floor office a few blocks from the White House and raising several million dollars in private contributions to fund the effort. Romney, the first candidate to take advantage of the new law, spent $8.9 million on the effort.
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Because the (unskewed) polls at the time showed he would win.
Any candidate that doesn’t do this as soon as possible is crazy. Transition with a government this big is a huge job.