The State Department won’t give President-elect Joe Biden or his transition team dozens of messages that foreign leaders have given to the department, CNN reported Wednesday.

President Trump’s administration is preventing Biden from accessing the messages that were sent after Biden was projected as the president-elect over the weekend, State Department officials familiar with the messages told CNN.

The department typically organizes the communications with presidents-elect, but the Trump administration has refused to recognize Biden’s win and grant his team access to transition information and resources.

The Biden transition team instead has conducted calls with foreign leaders without State Department help, but a source familiar with the situation told CNN, “They would prefer to be using the State Department resources.”

Sources told CNN that some foreign leaders determined the State Department will not get them in contact with Biden, prompting them to reach out to former diplomats from the Obama administration for help.

The Biden team is attempting to handle the nonsensitive calls in an unexpected turn of events, including releasing readouts of the calls.

The State Department did not immediately return a request for comment.

Secretary of State M... (Read more)