The US Department of Defense (DOD) is ensuring a smooth transition of power, a top Indian-American official at the Pentagon said, and asserted it is fully cooperating with the Biden administration in this regard. Till date, the Department of Defense has completed 213, involving over 550 senior department officials,” Kash Patel, chief of staff to the Department of Defense and to the acting Secretary of Defence, wrote in an op-ed to Fox News on Wednesday. Patel, who is the highest-ranking Indian-American civilian in the Pentagon, said the department also completed 261 requests for information and 43 initial transition books constituting upwards of 7,200 pages.“Though this one-day pause caused much false speculation that the DOD was halting the transition entirely, Acting Secretary Miller and I both made sure to reach out to the transition team for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to personally guarantee them that the transition activities would resume and the media chatter about nefarious plots was just that: chatter,” Patel wrote.