President-elect Joe Biden has begun planning his transition, naming a team of experts Monday to work on the coronavirus pandemic. But one thing Biden cannot do at this point is move into any government office space or receive government funding for the transition.

A key, if little-known Trump administration official has yet to determine formally that Biden won the election, holding up some crucial resources traditionally available to the president-elect.

Under the 1963 Presidential Transition Act, it's up to the General Services Administration, or GSA, to determine or "ascertain" the winner of the presidential election, at least as far as starting the process of turning over the keys to the new administration goes.

Robert MacKichan, who was general counsel to the GSA during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, told NPR the law is kind of vague about what this actually means. "There's no legal standard contained within this act as to what constitutes the ascertainment," he said.