Pentagon says Biden team was not blocked from intelligence discussions
Senior Defense officials disputed reports that the Biden transition team was blocked from meeting with the Defense Department's intelligence agencies. Instead, the government officials say that mutually agreed-upon transition guidelines were not followed by the Biden intelligence transition team when they contacted the DOD intelligence agencies for meetings last weekend.
The transition guidelines specified that the requests for meetings with those agencies had to be made by Biden's Pentagon transition team. A senior defense official said that was noted early last week and by mid-week meetings had been arranged for Monday and Tuesday between the Biden intelligence transition team and the DOD intelligence agencies.
"We're moving rapidly and if they want to avoid a delay they need to go to the proper agency review teams as ... set up under the agreements that have been in place," said an official, who emphasized that any perceived delays in meetings should not be attributed to the Defense Department.
Another senior defense official noted that the meetings were arranged quickly given the amount of time it takes to deal with specific classification procedures.
In a statement, acting Defense Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said, "The DoD and its transition leadership are fully cooperating with the Biden transition team, placing national security and the protection of the American people at the forefront of any and all discussions."
The comments from the Department of Defense came after some media outlets had reported that Biden's team was blocked from meeting with DOD intelligence agencies.
-ABC News' Luis Martinez







