Longstanding laws and norms govern how one presidential administration is supposed to hand off power to the next. They’re designed to ensure a smooth transfer while at the same time imposing some ethical guardrails during the interim period as incoming presidents make key personnel decisions.

President-elect Donald Trump is flouting some of those rules as he prepares to take office Jan. 20 — and by all accounts will continue flouting them, unless members of his own party start insisting.

Breaking with his predecessors, Trump is funding his transition with unlimited donations from undisclosed sources — dark money that could even include foreign donations. He’s avoided a customary arrangement that binds transition officials to ethics rules. And he tried to shield his nominees from undergoing the customary FBI background checks meant to ferret out misconduct or any red flags in their background.

Nothing about that serves the public interest.

Start with the money. To fund salaries, office space, and other expenses during their transition and inauguration, president-elects have relied on a combination of public support and disclosed private donations.

Trump’s transition has largely been funded by dark money interests, and unlike past presidents he hasn’t imposed any contribution limits or transparency requirements. The public doesn’t know who is funding the transition, or how much they’re giving.

But we can certainly guess: Trump’s deep-pocketed private-sector allies like Elon Musk, wannabe oligarchs for whom the lack of any limits or transparency amounts to an unprecedented opportunity to influence the incoming administration.

In other respects, Trump is ignoring the Presidential Transitions Act of 1963, a federal law that sets out the basic guidelines for one president to hand over power to the next. Among other things, it sets various deadlines, which presidents and candidates have always abided by in the past.

Last month the Trump transition team signed one of several required agreements with the Biden administration, blowing through the Oct. 1 legal deadline by nearly two months. That memorandum of understanding allows his transition to send landing teams of personnel to each federal agency to begin receiving briefings and other information to ease the Jan. 20 power transfer. He also begrudgingly signed an agreement allowing the normal FBI background checks into his nominees and appointees, after Senate Republicans insisted.

But Trump has refused to enter into other legally mandated agreements, including one that would release federal funding for office space, technology, and other transition needs. That’s because that pact includes strict ethics rules barring conflicts of interests by Trump and his team once sworn into office.

Instead, the Trump transition intends to implement his own ethics plan, something the law does not contemplate or allow.

Crucially, the agreements Trump refuses to sign would also provide for up to $7.2 million in federal funding for the transition in exchange for limits on outside donor contributions and disclosure requirements. By ignoring this rule, Trump can continue to raise unlimited funds to set up his administration while keeping the sources of that money under wraps.

The Biden administration and lawmakers must use every lever at their disposal to hold Trump and his incoming administration to the spirit and letter of the laws aimed at protecting the American people and national interests.

That begins with transparency from the General Services Administration, which oversees the transition, about whether Trump’s failure to follow the rule is affecting the ability of the agency to facilitate the transfer of power — a task important for ensuring the continual protection of Americans’ public health, safety, and security.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter last month to General Services Administrator Robin Carnahan asking how Trump’s refusal to follow the law has affected the transition.

Members of the Senate should also refuse Trump’s call to circumvent the confirmation requirements for members of his administration.

Trump has called for using recess appointments to put members of his cabinet who would otherwise need Senate confirmation in place without this vetting. Such appointments are meant to be used in emergency situations when the Senate is unable to convene to fill a cabinet-level vacancy — not to get around the Senate’s constitutional duty to advise and consent to these appointments.

Some Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, have raised alarms at Trump’s approach.

“It is so important that we not shortchange the confirmation process for cabinet appointments in particular,” Collins said in an interview with the Portland Press Herald. “I do not agree with the president that we should forgo background checks and have recess appointments where we would not have hearings on these very important appointments.”

But lawmakers should do more than disagree with Trump’s approach — they must refuse to play along.