Members of the Biden transition team are scheduled to receive briefings from the Pentagon’s intelligence agencies beginning on Monday, according to defense officials.
The briefings are to take place days after, according to a former senior intelligence official familiar with intelligence transition discussions, that the Pentagon had blocked the Biden transition team’s access to the Department of Defense’s intelligence agencies such as the NSA and Defense Intelligence Agency.
The Department of Defense strongly denied claims that it had hindered the briefings, with a spokesman calling the claims “demonstrably false and patently insulting.”
Multiple Pentagon officials blamed the meetings being delayed on the Biden transition organization, saying the members of its intelligence transition team reached out directly to the Pentagon’s intelligence agencies, which they said was a violation of the transition arrangement agreed to with the Biden camp.
“We can’t help them if they can’t read an org chart,” a defense official told CNN.
“That was more of an internal issue for the Biden team than a DoD issue,” another defense official said.
Biden transition team spokesman Ned Price declined to comment about the briefings.
Pentagon officials also said that this week’s briefings between defense intelligence officials and the Biden transition team were scheduled prior to reports of the Pentagon denying access being published by multiple news outlets.
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