Biden To Finally Begin Receiving Presidential Intelligence Briefings Today

Updated September 8, 2021

If there's one thing to be gained from the lingering tumult that has surrounded the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, it's that we each have a reason to get acquainted with important electoral processes that tend to fade into the background during normal circumstances.

For instance, if you weren't familiar with the concept of a faithless elector before or didn't know how your state treated them, that hole in your knowledge was likely filled in the aftermath of this election.

Furthermore, it seems recent events have given us a rare, public look into the significance of the General Service Administration and what happens when their duties are delayed.

And as a result of such a delay, we now know precisely when President-Elect Joe Biden is supposed to receive presidential daily briefings, which wouldn't even be a question we may have asked in other years.

On November 30, Biden is scheduled to receive his first daily briefing as the incoming president.

As NBC News reported, these briefings come in the form of a classified document that serves as a compilation of intelligence reports and analyses of various national security issues developing throughout the world.

These briefings are compiled by the Director of National Intelligence and contain information from various branches of the nation's intelligence community such as the CIA.

According to CNN, the way this intelligence material is laid out and the required security clearance required to view it has led some to characterize it as "the newspaper with the world's smallest circulation."

And from now on, Biden, incoming Vice President Kamala Harris, and their most senior national security staff will be among its readers.

The fact that this didn't happen earlier was a result of the Trump Administration's refusal to grant Biden access to intelligence briefings.

As CNN reported, this was a side effect of President Donald Trump's refusal to concede the election.

Yet while he still insists that Biden's win was the result of widespread voter fraud that he has not provided evidence for, his administration has since authorized steps to ensure a peaceful transition of power.

For reference, Trump received his first presidential daily briefing a week after the results of the 2016 presidential election went public.

In the days before these briefings were extended to Biden, Harris was in the unusual position of having access to more classified information than the president-elect.

As CNN reported, this is because she's a member of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.

However, the briefings she will now receive will be the same as Biden's.

From the sounds of it, Biden is likely eager to receive these materials and is expected to pore over them thoroughly.

As James Clapper — the country's former Director of National Intelligence — told CNN, "From my experience with then-Vice President Biden, he was an avid reader and in general a voracious consumer of intelligence. I'm sure he will be especially so as President."

This apparently presents a contrast to President Trump, who often skipped Presidential Daily Briefings and preferred to get oral briefings on intelligence issues.

This difference also doesn't appear to be lost on analysts like Samantha Vinograd, who was once a senior adviser at the U.S. National Security Council.

As she said, "President Joe Biden won't get a Cliff Notes version of the PDB. Unlike President Trump, the PDB is not going to be an 'if I feel like it' kind of activity. In my experience with then Vice President Biden, the PDB was a must-do."

h/t: CNN

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