GETTING TO WORK: "Kash Patel, a White House loyalist who was installed at the Pentagon two weeks ago amid a purge of senior civilian officials, has been put in charge of the Defense Department's transition to the next administration, a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday," our colleague Jacqueline Feldscher reports. The news, first reported by CNN, comes one day after the General Services Administration allowed the Trump administration to begin talking with the incoming Biden team to begin the transition process. Patel previously worked for Rep. Devin Nunes , the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, and as a staffer played a key role in helping Republicans discredit the Russia probe. He also worked on the National Security Council staff, for former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, and most recently as a top White House counterterrorism official. Pentagon transition officials also held their first meeting with the Biden team on Tuesday via teleconference, Thomas Muir, the senior career executive for transition, said in a briefing. Biden's transition team will have dedicated office space at the Pentagon that allows for social distancing, Muir said, but he expects the process to be a mix of virtual and in-person meetings. Muir said he will conduct a "small tour" of the building on Monday with some of Biden's transition team members. The daily brief: Meanwhile, Trump on Tuesday granted Biden access to presidential intelligence briefings after stonewalling the information amid his resistance to the transition of power, POLITICO's Matthew Choi, Daniel Lippman and Nancy Cook report. The President's Daily Brief, a summary of high-level national security intelligence, is routinely shared with the president-elect to prepare him for his move into the White House. But until Tuesday, Trump had refused to loop Biden into the briefs as he challenged the outcome of the election. Officials are still working out the coordination, but the briefings for Biden are likely to start early next week. Related: Biden weighs Mike Morell as his CIA chief. A key Dem senator says don't bother, via The Daily Beast. And: Biden urges Senate to take up confirmation process for Cabinet picks, via POLITICO's Nick Niedzwiadek. SECDEF SEARCH: We're told by several insiders there's still no final decision on who will be Biden's pick to be secretary of defense. But an announcement could come right after the Thanksgiving holiday. Biden is holding his cards close to his chest. "We're going to do that. We're just doing a piece at a time here," he told reporters on Tuesday after introducing the national security and foreign policy picks he announced on Monday. But he declined to respond to a question about whether Michèle Flournoy, who has been at the top of everyone's list, is among the candidates. She is still widely considered the frontrunner, despite some divergent views with the president-elect over Afghanistan and pressure from the left to disclose her ties with the defense industry and commit to more rigorous review of arms sales, among other concerns. If she does become the first woman to run the Pentagon, she's also likely to bring with her a number of women, as NBC News laid out on Tuesday. Some with close ties to Flournoy, who is a former undersecretary of defense for policy, are already part of Biden's Pentagon agency review team. "She has been a mentor to women in the national security space over the course of 20 some years or more," former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told NBC. "So there is a crop of women who are highly, highly qualified and would certainly be very eligible to go into a number of positions in the Pentagon." Rosa Brooks, who worked for Flournoy at the Pentagon, also said she thinks the diversity overall will be a top priority for Flournoy. "I also think she's someone who is strongly committed to having a diverse team in every possible way: not just gender but race, religion, age, type of background experience," Brooks said. One name that sticks out is Michelle Howard, the retired admiral and vice chief of naval operations who is on the transition team. She is reportedly on the short list for secretary of the Navy, which would make her the first woman and the first Black person to be the civilian leader of the service. Some leading GOP senators on Tuesday slammed Biden's announced picks, including Tom Cotton, who accused them of a series of failures in the Obama years, and Marco Rubio, who called them "polite and & orderly caretakers of America's decline." Related: Biden's gender parity plan could be watershed moment for women in national security, via Defense News. And: Can Biden make the military safe for those who serve? via Foreign Policy. | 
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