Kamala Harris filed paperwork Monday morning to begin planning for a potential presidential transition – a standard move for a non-incumbent candidate but also another measure of her rushed campaign launch.
Former President Donald Trump announced his own transition committee last week.
To lead the effort, CNN has learned that Harris is tapping the same person who ran the process for Joe Biden four years ago: Yohannes Abraham, the current Indonesia-based US ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Abraham and Harris worked together closely on the last transition and then when he was the first chief of staff to the National Security Council under Biden.
Abraham will not start the transition work until he leaves the State Department. He is expected to leave his ambassador job soon and move back to Washington.
Abraham, who did not respond when contacted by CNN for comment, has earned praise for the job he is leaving behind.
“Yohannes is one of our best,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a visit to Laos at the end of July. “When he picks up the phone, Washington listens, in no small part because he used to be on the other side of the line in Washington himself.”
The Harris transition operation will be hiring other staff, with Covington & Burling LLP – the law firm of former Attorney General Eric Holder, which ran the running mate vetting process for the Democratic nominee – helping advise how best to set up the effort.
The purpose of a transition committee is to ease any new administration taking control of the massive federal government, prepare senior aides for jobs and structures they may not be familiar with and facilitate a smoother transition for whoever is sworn in at noon on January 20, 2025.
But it’s a tricky balance for Harris, who is running as both an extension of Biden’s administration and a fresh start. A person familiar with the vice president’s planning told CNN that the transition apparatus will not be making personnel decisions before the election. It also will not have a role in policymaking for Harris, which remains the domain of the vice president’s office and the campaign. Harris was facing a deadline of next week to file the transition paperwork.
The person also added that, as with the transition processes run by Biden and by Barack Obama in 2008, “this transition apparatus will focus on operational considerations in the pre-election period, such as making sure that sufficient vetting capacity exists post-election.”
Eventually, the transition committee for the winning candidate will become the nexus for everything from picking Cabinet secretaries to hiring for lower-level jobs to getting arms around information and major decisions that will face the new president.
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