Subject: draft weekly memo for your review
From: "Chris Lu" <[email-masked]>
To: "John Podesta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:18:26 -0500

Weekly Transition Memo for Senators Obama and Biden

From:    Transition Advisory Board and Staff

Date:     September 26, 2008

I.          Upcoming Meeting

The transition board, staff, and working group chairs will meet for a six-hour meeting in Washington, D.C. next Friday, October 3.  The transition team will begin reviewing the recommendations of the six policy groups (national security, energy, health, economy, education, and immigration), as well as a separate group dealing with technology and government reform.  We will be focusing our discussion on the strategic goals in each issue area, decisions that need to be made during the first 100 days, and early action items that can/should be dealt with during the 77 days of the transition.

In addition, our upcoming meeting will evaluate the agency review team's approach to certain key agencies such as State, Defense, and Treasury.  We will be addressing legal and ethical issues regarding who can serve on the agency review teams.  Finally, we will be looking to further integrate and coordinate the efforts of the different working groups to make sure that there are no gaps in our transition planning.

We will reconvene in D.C. one week later, on October 10, to continue our work.

II.         Personnel

On our weekly conference call, the personnel working group gave an update on its work.  As a result of extensive consultations, good progress has been made in assembling an array of potential nominees for cabinet, senior subcabinet, and senior White House positions.  Currently, we have a team of 50-60 outside lawyers who are vetting the names of approximately 120 potential nominees for high-level positions.  

More work continues to be done to ensure diversity for certain groups, such as Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Muslim Americans, and disabled persons.  We also continue our efforts to search for more potential nominees who are state and local officials.  Several headhunters have volunteered to help find people who would be good managers to fix broken departments or could fill specialty positions such as chief financial officers, chief information officers, or inspector generals.  

On a related issue, we have reached an agreement with the White House and the McCain campaign on a new personnel software system for the Office of Presidential Personnel.  (The current White House system dates back to the early 1990s and has now been surpassed by software systems used by private-sector search firms.)  All three parties will work side-by-side to develop a system that can be used prior to November 4 to track personnel and that will be installed in the White House on January 20.  

III.       Security Clearances

To ease the transition from one administration to another, the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 allows for pre-clearances of people working on a presidential transition.  After meeting this week with the Justice Department and FBI, we will soon begin submitting the names of upwards of 100 people for interim security clearances so they can receive intelligence briefings, enter federal agencies, and review classified documents right after Election Day.  Our expectation is that this first batch of clearances will cover the transition leadership, national security team, and those people who will need enter federal agencies such as Defense, State, or Energy.  After Election Day, we can submit a far greater number of names for security clearances.

IV.       Miscellaneous

To fund our pre-Election Day planning efforts, we have now reached our goal of raising $300,000.  We still have no plans to publicly disclose the names of our 60 donors or the amount raised, until we are asked by the press.

On the logistics front, we have secured additional post-Election Day transition space in Chicago that can accommodate up to 75 staffers and will have rooms to conduct meetings and interviews.  The office space is on the 38th floor of the Kluczynski building, one floor below your current Senate office.  For press conferences, we can use a nearby conference room or a courtroom in the Dirksen federal building across the street.  This Chicago space is intended to supplement the larger transition headquarters that is being planned in D.C.  

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Chris Lu
[email-masked]
312-505-4864 (cell)