On December 14, the Electoral College confirmed Biden’s win, but Trump still refuses to accept defeat.
The staff in the West Wing – the majority are political appointees – were told to began packing their belongings to prepare and make space for Joe Biden’s arrival in January next month, but this message has since been disregarded.
In the original email sent on December 22, people were asked to do several things to prepare for Biden’s arrival; from cleaning their office microwaves to taking home any personal belongings.
The email also stated that staff was set to start leaving on January 4 with the final payroll being January 19 – the day before Biden’s inauguration.
But on December 23, another email was sent to staff informing them to ignore the previous email request asking them to begin the leaving process.
According to the Independent, part of the email people received reads: “Please disregard the below message. Updated information will be shared in the coming days.”
CBS News White House correspondent Weija Jiang tweeted: “NEW: Despite Trump’s fight to stay, last night White House staff received a detailed email from his exec. office with directions on the departing process. Employees will start leaving the week of 01/04.”
Jiang added: “Note addresses everything from cleaning microwaves to ethics debriefing.’ Jiang also shared a snippet of the email staff received with their previous instructions.”
It hasn’t been officially confirmed why the second email was sent telling staff to ‘disregard’ the previous instruction.
Traditionally, the Trumps would have moved out of the White House during Biden’s inauguration for it to be ready for the new president to move into with their family after the ceremony, but because of the ongoing pandemic, a deep clean is planned which will make the transition period a bit longer.
It is reported that the Trump family are moving to the Mar-a-Lago club, Florida, once they’ve left the White House.
While Biden’s inauguration is coming the following month, Trump still insists that November’s election was rigged, saying: “THE DEMOCRATS DUMPED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BALLOTS IN THE SWING STATES LATE IN THE EVENING. IT WAS A RIGGED ELECTION!!!”
Trump’s tweet was flagged by Twitter with a disclaimer that reads: “This claim about election fraud is disputed.”
Twitter has done this on many of Trump’s tweets in recent weeks. As of this writing, there has been no evidence to support his claims of fraud.