Less than a month before Election Day, former President Donald Trump’s campaign has not yet participated in the government’s official presidential transition process, a significant break from past practice that could threaten the seamless transfer of power should the Republican nominee win election.

Trump’s team has missed two key deadlines to sign agreements with the administration that are set by federal law and has also failed to sign an ethics plan that is required to jump-start the process of planning for a new administration. Trump’s representatives did attend a meeting at the White House last month, but they otherwise have had little communication with the Biden administration about the handoff and have skipped the opportunity to receive national security briefings.

Trump’s approach is a clear, although not wholly unexpected, departure from how previous presidential candidates prepared to take control of the vast federal bureaucracy. It appears to be guided, at least in part, by the candidate’s deep suspicion and mistrust of the government he is running to lead.

Experts note Trump may also have other incentives. His refusal to sign the documents allows him to circumvent fundraising rules that put limits on private contributions to the transition effort, as well as ethics rules meant to avoid possible conflicts of interest for the incoming administration.

Representatives of Trump’s transition team, formally known as Trump Vance 2025 Transition Inc., said its lawyers were still negotiating with the Biden administration over terms of the agreements.

Lawyers for both parties “continue to constructively engage” in talks, Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, the Trump transition co-chairs, said in a statement to The New York Times. “Any suggestion to the contrary is false and intentionally misleading.”

The transition team for the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, has signed all three documents, according to White House officials.

The formal transition process, which is dictated by the Presidential Transition Act, has traditionally been viewed as nonpartisan. Candidates typically begin setting up teams as early as six months before Election Day to begin the time- consuming work of vetting and hiring thousands of political appointees and creating policy agendas, while coordinating directly with the current administration to ensure that agencies run smoothly for the turnover.

By delaying that process, Trump’s team has cut itself off from some government services and, potentially, millions of dollars in funding. It has also, at least for now, prevented aides from getting security clearances required before they can review federal records.

“An effective transition leads to an effective administration. It leads to better staffing, better organization and leads to the country being safer and more secure,” said Heath Brown, a public policy professor at John Jay College who wrote a book on the Biden transition. “I think the Trump transition team is unsure of how much they want to play by the rules.”

Trump broke convention on this front before.

In 2016, his campaign organized what appeared to be a standard transition process. But after Election Day, Trump sharply changed course, firing the leadership of his transition team and cutting off communications with the Obama administration.

Four years later, the Trump administration stuck closely to the standard transition script until immediately after the election, when the General Services Administration — which oversees much of the process — followed Trump’s lead in refusing to recognize his defeat. For nearly three weeks, his administration froze money meant for the winning candidate and impeded communications between the Biden transition team and federal agencies.

This year, Trump did not name the leadership of his transition team until mid-August, months after leading candidates typically do so. Less than a week later, he told the British tabloid The Daily Mail that he would refuse national security briefings, saying he didn’t trust the Biden administration.

Although the deadline to sign the transition document was Sept. 1, the Trump team has not signed it. Under its terms, the General Services Administration offers office space, technology support and a variety of other services to both candidates, as well as up to $7.2 million in funding to the president-elect to help cover staffing, travel and other costs.

That assistance comes with a significant string attached: To receive it, each transition team must agree to disclose its private donors and impose a $5,000 limit on contributions from individuals or organizations.

After the 2016 election, Trump’s team disclosed $6.5 million in outside contributions to support its transition. Four years later, the Biden transition revealed that it had raised $22.1 million from private donors.

If a campaign does not sign the agreement, it is not subject to the fundraising limits or disclosure requirements. And unlike campaign contributions, money donated to the transition is not regulated by the Federal Election Commission.