WASHINGTON — The Harris campaign has tapped Yohannes Abraham for a top role in her presidential transition team, according to a source familiar with the planning.
Abraham is the U.S. Ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and is based in Indonesia. A U.S. official confirmed that Abraham will conclude his tenure in Jakarta in the coming days.
In his new role, Abraham is expected to have a small team tasked with putting in place operations for Vice President Kamala Harris to begin building an administration after the election if she defeats former President Donald Trump. The source said that the team will not be making decisions about personnel in a potential administration or developing policies before Election Day.
Covington and Burling LLP, the law firm where former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder works, will help the transition team get set up. Holder vetted potential running mates for the Harris campaign.
A State Department spokesperson said Abraham has spent his two years as ambassador working to expand and deepen the relationship between the U.S. and nations in southeast Asia. Before that, he was chief of staff of the National Security Council and oversaw the White House Situation Room.
Transition teams are familiar territory for Abraham. In 2020, he was executive director of the Biden transition. During that time, he worked closely with Harris, according to the source.
Abraham’s appointment comes as the General Services Administration prepares to engage the Harris and Trump campaigns in the presidential transition process. A spokesperson for the GSA said the agency will offer its services to both transition teams through a letter on Aug. 27.
Next steps include accepting the offer in writing and executing a memo of understanding in order to get office space in Washington, D.C., and administrative support to do their work. Federal law related to presidential transitions stipulates Sept. 1 as the deadline for GSA to enter into formal agreements with presidential transition teams. It’s not clear how that timeline will be affected given the short period between the offer of services and the start of next month, which falls on a Sunday before a federal holiday.
The Trump campaign announced last week that it has formed a transition team headed by Linda McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration under Trump, and Howard Lutnick, CEO of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
The choice of McMahon and Lutnick also serves to further distance Trump from Project 2025. The collaboration by conservative groups offered about 900 pages of policy proposals and includes a personnel database aimed at staffing a future Trump White House. Democrats have called the proposal extreme and have attempted to link Trump’s campaign to it. Several former Trump administration staffers are part of the groups behind Project 2025, but McMahon and Lutnick haven’t been connected to the effort.
Congress outlined a need for structured presidential transitions in 1963, recognizing that any incoming president needed to hit the ground running immediately after inauguration by having a team working to fill thousands of appointments across the federal government before the new administration takes power.
