Although the Biden team did not publicly disclose the names of some officials, the identities appear to be known within the agencies. A person briefed on the process said the Biden team had selected Lora Shiao to serve as director of national intelligence until the Senate upheld the election of Mr Biden, Avril D. Haines. She has been the agency’s Chief Operating Officer since September. Similarly, one person briefed on the decision said that Monty Wilkinson, a low profile hiring manager at the Justice Department, would step up as acting attorney general.
In some cases it was not easy to find an interim officer. At the Department of Defense, the Biden team struggled to appoint a Trump agent, David L. Norquist, to the department, if only for a few days until Mr Biden’s candidate, Lloyd J. Austin III, is confirmed. By law, a Senate-approved member of the department, in this case Mr. Norquist, automatically takes over the duties of secretary when the secretary is absent. Mr. Biden ultimately chose to stick with the tradition, and Mr. Norquist will do so until Mr. Austin is sworn in.
The Biden transition team has reason not to trust Trump loyalists in at least one instance. In the past few months, transition officials have clashed with senior Pentagon officials. First, the Pentagon blocked the transition team’s access to some intelligence agencies. Then the Pentagon announced in briefings in mid-December a “mutually agreed vacation break”, only to tell Biden transition numbers that there was no such agreement. The Pentagon hired a Trump loyalist, Kashyap Patel, to oversee the transition, which frustrated some members of the president-elect’s transition team.
In a sign of persistent tension, the Biden transition team refused to vacate office space at the Pentagon after the inauguration, Christopher C. Miller, the acting Secretary of Defense. An official on the Biden transition team cited Mr Miller’s status and the coronavirus pandemic for the decision previously reported by Bloomberg.
At the Justice Department, the Biden team was looking for an interim attorney general who, at any point during the Trump administration, was not involved in the myriad political scandals that have defined the agency.
In the election of Mr. Wilkinson, who oversaw the Department of Justice’s human resources, security planning and library and is unknown even to most Washington insiders, the Biden transition team hoped for a stable and drama-free hand to lead the department through to the judge Merrick B. Garland, Mr. Biden’s candidate for attorney general, could be confirmed in the coming weeks, according to a person briefed on the decision.
For the most part, the publicly appointed interim agency directors across government are impartial career officials.
