Biden Admin Says it Can’t Coordinate on Hostages Until Trump Team Signs Documents

Photo Credit: Adam Schultz/White House

President Joe Biden walks to the Oval Office with President-elect Donald Trump, Nov. 13, 2024.

(JNS) Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security advisor, said last week that the Biden administration “sent a signal” to President-elect Donald Trump’s team that it is prepared to coordinate on a hostage deal during the transition period prior to inauguration day on Jan. 20.

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday in response to a JNS question that it is not clear that such a collaboration will occur.

“There’s a process that has to take place before we can, say for example, brief members of an incoming transition team on classified information,” Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, told JNS at the department’s press briefing.

“We’re ready to go. So far, the incoming transition team has not availed themselves of that process,” he added. “It’s up to them to speak to the timing to that, but we’re ready to go as soon as they are.”

Under the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, which has been amended several times, the Trump team would have to sign legal agreements about the transition process. It hasn’t done so, according to the State Department.

Some analysts have said that Trump has yet to sign the relevant paperwork because it would require him to reveal donors to his transition efforts, perhaps making potential conflicts of interest public.

JNS sought comment from the Trump transition team.

“We are committed to doing everything that we can to make this a successful transition,” Miller told JNS. “That includes, of course, briefing the incoming administration at the appropriate time, when they have completed the appropriate steps, about world events and about how we see world events, and about things that we believe that they need to know.”

Several family members of Israeli hostages told reporters previously that they are placing their hopes in Trump’s efforts to free the hostages.

“The fact that there is a new administration that will put new thoughts on the table, new thinking, and I think that–by itself—is a welcome progress,” Ruby Chen, the father of the Israeli-American hostage Itay Chen, told JNS.

“We have been in a stalemate for a couple of months on the hostage deal,” he added.

Trump met Biden in the Oval Office recently and said the two talked “very much” about the Middle East, the New York Post reported. “I wanted to know his views on where we are and what he thinks,” Trump told the paper. “He gave them to me. He was very gracious.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a congratulatory phone call over the weekend with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Trump’s nominee to replace Blinken.