President-elect Donald Trump’s transition operation announced today that it had belatedly signed an agreement with the Justice Department that will allow the FBI to conduct background checks on people Trump intends to appoint as senior officials in his new administration.

FBI background checks have long been a routine part of transitions. Law enforcement vetting of a president-elect’s senior team is normally part of decisions about whether they can be entrusted with access to national security secrets, and senators traditionally want to see such dossiers during the confirmation process.

But Trump, who is hostile to the FBI because of its role in various criminal and counterintelligence investigations into him, had let weeks pass without signing the agreement.

His team considered bypassing the FBI and instead using private investigators. Under that plan, Trump would grant security clearances to his picks after his inauguration, and the Senate would not have access to the usual vetting materials.

Despite the signing of the agreement, it remains unclear whether Trump’s team plans to send the names of all officials requiring a security clearance or Senate confirmation to the FBI for vetting. The announcement did not say whether Trump would require his appointees to undergo the process or was simply allowing the FBI to begin looking at those who are willing to submit to its scrutiny.

Susie Wiles, Trump’s campaign manager and the incoming White House chief of staff, said in a statement that the agreement would ensure that Trump and his team were “ready on Day 1” to begin enacting their agenda. The transition also said submitting names for background checks and security clearances “will afford the transition process additional insights, and it facilitates our agency landing teams gaining access to the information they need to prepare for leadership of the federal agencies and departments.”

Still, the background check process begins with an individual filling out a form with personal information. Under normal circumstances, if an intended appointee refused to cooperate, the president-elect would presumably drop that person. But Trump revels in flouting norms, and there is no legal requirement that requires him to use FBI checks, so the possibility remains that if some decline to participate, Trump might ultimately grant them a security clearance or submit their names to the Senate anyway.

The Trump transition team had also delayed signing other agreements with the Biden White House that are part of the normal handoff process. One enables a transition team to use government resources, like office space and email; Trump has decided instead to use private donations to pay for administrative support.

The other agreement, which the Trump transition finally signed last week, allows transition officials to gain access to nonpublic — though still not classified — information in exchange for agreeing to obey certain ethics rules and other limits. That agreement allowed so-called “landing teams” to arrive at agencies for briefings about their activities ahead of the transfer of power.

In October, The New York Times reported that a memo had circulated at high levels within Trump’s orbit outlining a proposal suggesting that Trump bypass the FBI entirely and, after private screening processes, grant security clearances to a large number of people on his first day in office. The proposal was said to have been influenced by his top legal adviser, Boris Epshteyn, among others.

Such a step would reduce the risk that the FBI would uncover evidence of potential wrongdoing and launch a criminal investigation into any of Trump’s cohort. It would also severely undermine the value of the background checks, since private investigators do not have access to information in government law enforcement and intelligence databases.

Because the same background check materials are also routinely consulted by the Senate during the confirmation process, that step would represent a challenge to the legislative branch’s independent authority and constitutional role.

The memo also suggested that Trump could regard the private background checks as covered by executive privilege — which means he would not have to show them directly to the Senate. Instead, the memo laid out a scenario in which a Trump administration official would brief a limited number of Senate staff members on the findings at the White House.

The contents of the memo were described to the Times by three people briefed on the matter.

Trump’s delay in starting the process of FBI background checks had attracted growing attention on Capitol Hill, where Republicans will hold a majority of the Senate starting in January. Assuming all 47 Democratic senators would vote against any nominee who lacked a background check as a matter of principle, it would take four Republican senators to break partisan ranks and deny confirmation.

Against that backdrop, some Republican senators have suggested that they would like nominees to receive traditional background checks, while others have made clear they would go along whatever Trump wanted to do.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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