Barely twelve hours after television networks declared Donald Trump the next president of the United States four years ago, officials at Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, D.C., quietly launched a new operation – not to capture drug smugglers or human traffickers, but to capture the attention of the Trump appointees who would be taking control of government.
“[W]e are moving fast and furious here at HQ to be prepared for the new Administration,” the agency’s head of law enforcement operations told colleagues in an email on Nov. 9, 2016, the day after the election.
The scramble that privately unfolded across government in the days immediately after the presidential election four years ago – and during almost every peaceful transition of power before then – has yet to materialize this year, as President Donald Trump continues to challenge Joe Biden’s election victory and Trump administration officials wait to officially declare Biden the winner.
"It's a study in contrasts," one current U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Hundreds of Border Patrol emails obtained by ABC News through a Freedom of Information Act request offer a rare glimpse into just how far government agencies usually go and how quickly they take action to prepare for a new administration – efforts that current officials say are on hold right now across the U.S. government.
“As we all know, one of President-elect Trump’s central campaign themes was ‘border security.’ With our mission a clear priority… [w]e must be ready to provide the best and most accurate information as quickly as possible in order to take advantage of every opportunity to describe who we are, what we do and what we need to get our mission accomplished," the Border Patrol’s acting deputy chief of operations in Washington, D.C, wrote to other senior officials on Nov. 10, 2016, two days after the election four years ago.
-ABC News’ Mike Levine
