The institutionalist in me loves that there's a meaningful legal distinction between being the Statutory President-Elect (as determined by GSA under 3 USC 102 note) and the Constitutional President-Elect as determined by the electoral college.

It's another reminder that many (most?) of the powers of the modern president are derived not from the constitution, but from grants of power from Congress. The president, left to only his constitutional authority, is pretty really weak.

Or, in this case, the constitutional President-Elect (which Biden won't be until the electors meet) doesn't have much in the way of resources unless he/she is also the statutory President-elect (which Biden won't be until the GSA Admin confirms the election victory.)

IMO, the GSA administrator should not simply follow the network calls, and might reasonably wait for state certification and/or legal challenges.

However, it'd be crazy to allow the GSA admin to deny statutory President-Elect status to the constitutional president-elect.

Therefore, if the GSA admin tried to prevent transition funds from being released after the electors vote 12/14, that'd be a clear sign Congress needs to rewrite the law to make it clear the funds go even without GSA support once there's a constitutional president-elect.

And it's worth remembering that Biden is currently *neither* the constitutional or statutory President-Elect. It's fine to use that as colloquial shorthand, but his current status is probably best described as Presumptive President-Elect.