President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will begin receiving the nation's most sensitive secrets Monday as they prepare to assume office on Jan 20.
The pair are to receive the highly classified Presidential Daily Brief, a summary of the most important information collected across the U.S. intelligence community that is prepared and delivered by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Outgoing President Donald Trump approved the briefings for Biden last Tuesday, a day after his administration approved the formal transition process to his successor.
It was not immediately clear how Biden and Harris would receive the briefing, which is tailored to the needs and interests of its top recipient. For Trump, that has meant a focus on visuals and a preference for paper. His predecessor, Barack Obama, came to embrace the briefing being presented on a modified secure tablet. Given its sensitivity, the briefing is usually delivered in person by a career member of the intelligence community, though Trump has increasingly let that process lapse.
The PDB, as it is known, is just one component of the intelligence briefings presented to an incoming administration. Biden and Harris will also be able to receive in-depth subject matter briefings from intelligence experts, as well as a run-down of extremely classified covert operations underway during the Trump administration, the latter necessary to determine if they want to maintain or modify those operations once they assume office.
