In an Age of Terror, an Early Start on the Presidential Transition

Officials from the White House and each of the five presidential campaigns were meeting on April 20 at a luxurious hilltop estate to begin preparing for the day that President Barack Obama relinquishes power to a successor. During a two-day gathering on the grounds of Kykuit, the manor built by John D. Rockefeller, they will attend breakout sessions, working lunches and dinners, and white board-assisted discussions on how to execute a seamless transition of power in an age when the threat of a terrorist attack like the one on Sept 11, 2001, requires a fully functioning White House at all times. The meeting is a reminder that the Obama Administration will soon come to an end, and it is also the official start of a task akin to a giant corporate merger. But this merger will involve the federal government’s 4,000 senior executives and a $4 trillion budget and will all be compressed into the 72 days between the election on Nov 8 and the Jan 20, 2017, inauguration.

The National Archives and Records Administration — which by law must take custody of all the departing president’s records by 12:01 p.m. on Jan. 20 — has to begin copying a vast amount of digital material to its servers. The job has grown exponentially larger in recent years as the White House has become increasingly wired and data driven. (When President Obama took office, there were fewer than a dozen laptops in use at the White House; now, nearly every employee has one.) While the Clinton Administration produced roughly three terabytes — or trillions of bytes — of records, including 20 million e-mails, the Bush administration eight years later had to transfer about 80 terabytes, including 200 million e-mails. The archives administration projects that this president will turn over two and a half times as much: 200 terabytes. Recognizing the magnitude of the job, the White House resolved to begin the process, which involves copying the large files of e-mail records, photographs and videos that have become a staple of White House communications during President Obama’s term, several months earlier than in the past. It is expected to commence in April.