WASHINGTON — It’s not just Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden’s tran­si­tion that’s under a microscope.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and his allies are hark­ing back to his own tran­si­tion four years ago to make a false argu­ment that his own pres­i­den­cy was denied a fair chance for a clean launch. Press sec­re­tary Kayleigh McE­nany laid out the case from the White House podi­um last week and the same idea has been float­ed by Trump’s per­son­al lawyer and his for­mer direc­tor of nation­al intelligence.

The com­par­isons are part of a broad­er attempt by Trump and his team to under­mine the legit­i­ma­cy of Biden’s elec­tion and his right to an order­ly tran­si­tion by unspool­ing mis­truths about both this elec­tion sea­son and Trump’s treat­ment four years ago.

“It’s worth remem­ber­ing that this pres­i­dent was nev­er giv­en an order­ly tran­si­tion of pow­er. His pres­i­den­cy was nev­er accept­ed,” McE­nany told reporters who ques­tioned the Trump administration’s refusal to coop­er­ate with the Biden transition.

But the sit­u­a­tions are far different.

The day after her defeat in 2016, Demo­c­rat Hillary Clin­ton conceded.

“Don­ald Trump is going to be our pres­i­dent,” she said. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”

The next day, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, who had por­trayed Trump as an exis­ten­tial threat to the nation, invit­ed the pres­i­dent-elect to the White House and vis­it­ed with him in the Oval Office. Obama’s aides offered help to Trump’s incom­ing staffers.

“My num­ber one pri­or­i­ty in the com­ing two months is to try to facil­i­tate a tran­si­tion that ensures our pres­i­dent-elect is suc­cess­ful,” Oba­ma said.

Dur­ing his inau­gur­al address, Trump thanked Oba­ma and his wife, Michelle, “for their gra­cious aid through­out this tran­si­tion” and called them “mag­nif­i­cent.”

Trump’s team is not wrong that his own tran­si­tion was chaot­ic, but the dis­ar­ray in many ways was of his own doing.

Trump fired the head of his tran­si­tion, for­mer New Jer­sey Gov. Chris Christie, and aban­doned months of plan­ning in favor of a Cab­i­net hir­ing process that at times resem­bled a real­i­ty show. His team ignored offers of help from the out­go­ing Oba­ma administration.

That’s a far cry from the descrip­tion issued by McE­nany as pres­sure mounts for Trump to con­cede and for his admin­is­tra­tion to begin coop­er­at­ing with Biden’s tran­si­tion team. Among oth­er things, Biden is being denied access to the pres­i­den­tial dai­ly intel­li­gence brief­ing and to detailed brief­in­gs on the vac­cine dis­tri­b­u­tion plan as COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. eclipse 255,000.

Trump has refused to con­cede, instead mak­ing base­less claims of elec­toral fraud and try­ing long­shot legal chal­lenges that risk under­min­ing the nation’s demo­c­ra­t­ic traditions.

In 2016, despite his claims, Trump did receive stan­dard coop­er­a­tion dur­ing the transition.

But Trump’s team large­ly ignored advice from Oba­ma staffers, leav­ing brief­ing books unopened and ignor­ing spe­cial iPads loaded with mate­ri­als. The lack of prepa­ra­tion left aides clue­less even about how to work the over­head inter­com in the West Wing.

A poten­tial tran­si­tion plan worked on for months by Christie was cast aside. He was dis­missed from his post as part of a long-run­ning feud with the president’s son-in-law and future senior White House advis­er Jared Kushner.

Some of Trump’s hires were done on whim, as Cab­i­net can­di­dates vis­it­ed him in Trump Tow­er. The pres­i­dent-elect chose Michael Fly­nn for nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er after a rec­om­men­da­tion from Trump’s chil­dren and despite Obama’s warn­ings. Fly­nn was out after less than a month in office.

Christie, in his recent auto­bi­og­ra­phy, wrote that 30 binders were dis­card­ed and that mem­bers of Trump’s team “got rid of guid­ance that would have made their can­di­date an immense­ly more effec­tive pres­i­dent” and “stole from the man they’d just helped elect the launch he so rich­ly deserved.”

McE­nany and oth­ers have claimed that Trump was under­mined by an FBI inves­ti­ga­tion that was opened in the sum­mer of 2016 into pos­si­ble elec­tion inter­fer­ence, a probe that was tak­en over by spe­cial coun­sel Robert Mueller the fol­low­ing May after Trump fired FBI Direc­tor James Comey.

Trump lawyer Rudy Giu­liani, in a news con­fer­ence last week, claimed the FBI “made up the Rus­sia col­lu­sion plot” that dam­aged Trump and “cost our coun­try $40 mil­lion.” Ric Grenell, Trump’s for­mer ambas­sador to Ger­many and act­ing direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence, has said that what Oba­ma offered “was not a peace­ful tran­si­tion” because the FBI was already work­ing to under­mine Trump.

After near­ly two years, Mueller found insuf­fi­cient evi­dence to charge any­one in the Trump cam­paign with con­spir­ing with Rus­sia to sway the elec­tion. Through­out his term, Trump has framed the inves­ti­ga­tion as part of a “witch hunt” meant to destroy his pres­i­den­cy and said it showed the fed­er­al bureau­cra­cy was work­ing against him.

Oba­ma had no role in direct­ing the FBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion into ties between Rus­sia and the Trump cam­paign or in imped­ing Trump’s tran­si­tion to pres­i­dent. Though Oba­ma was aware that his intel­li­gence offi­cials were inves­ti­gat­ing Russ­ian inter­fer­ence, and had con­cerns about Trump and his back­ground, the inves­tiga­tive deci­sions were made not by him but by his law enforce­ment and intel­li­gence agencies.

Since his loss to Biden, Trump has repeat­ed­ly chal­lenged the fair­ness of the elec­tion with false claims about vot­ing and he has looked for ways to block cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the vote. The Trump admin­is­tra­tion has yet to for­mal­ly acknowl­edge Biden’s vic­to­ry, slow­ing the tran­si­tion at a time when the nation is fac­ing a con­flu­ence of eco­nom­ic and health crises.

“The lack of the tran­si­tion and coop­er­a­tion is the most reck­less and irre­spon­si­ble thing he has ever done,” David Plouffe, a for­mer senior Oba­ma advis­er, said in a recent inter­view. “We have an elec­tion in ear­ly Novem­ber, the new pres­i­dent takes over in the third week of Jan­u­ary. It’s no time at all, it’s over in the blink of an eye. The dam­age is severe.”