Page:CTRL0000034609 - Transcribed Interview of Kashyap Pramod Patel, (December 9, 2021).pdf/108

108 you get that position?

It's not a position one seeks. The Department of Defense regulations, as I understand it, have been in place for many, many years, and the Department of Defense's regulations designate as a head the chief of staff for all administrations for any Presidential transition. So I was designated the head of the transition, but the operational work was done completely separately.

And who did the operational work?

So Mr. Muir, Tom Muir, a decorated Army officer and civilian now at the Pentagon, led what we call the Washington Headquarters Services. He was designated by the Acting Secretary of Defense, I believe, to be the ART, the transition director.

So his team is a group of career staffers that work on Presidential transitions and transitions time and time again, and they are they were responsible to interact with the Biden transition team, the beachhead team as we call it, to come in and provide all of the transition work.

Me as the—I don't know what the right word is—quote/unquote, head was not involved in the day-to-day operations. We entrusted that to Tom Muir because he was excellent at that job, had been doing it for some time.

When is it supposed to begin, the transition from the old administration to the new?

So, as best as I understand it from—and, again, I just need to add for the record, we reviewed many, many documents in which I had conversations with general counsel at the Department of Defense, and they were all completely redacted. So we asked for those redactions to be lifted, but I believe you also haven't been able to see them. So—

That's correct.