Trump’s transition team counting on conservatives

Name: WORLD
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Vice President-elect Mike Pence takes over a team that includes a mix of newcomers, GOP veterans

WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump made incoming Vice President Mike Pence his transition chairman today, replacing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie amid ongoing scrutiny of the Bridgegate scandal.

The move elevates Pence’s influence along with Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Washington’s leading anti-immigration crusader, whose chief of staff, Rick Dearborn, became the transition director. Dearborn’s appointment bumps Rich Bagger, a close Christie ally, from the director position.

A document leaked this week shows Trump’s transition team is a combination of new faces and long-time Washington, D.C., insiders, but they appear to be mostly reliable conservatives.

The organization chart, first released by Politico, lists Ron Nicol, an expert on overhauling Fortune 50 companies, as head of the Agency Action Team. He directs five people assigned to fill the following federal agency categories:

Defense, led by retired Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Keith Kellogg, who helped lead the effort to rebuild Iraq in 2003; National security, led by former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until his 2014 retirement; Economy, led by Trump adviser David Malpass, an economist, and Bill Walton, vice president of the Council for National Policy and senior fellow of the Center on Wealth, Poverty, and Morality at the Discovery Institute; Domestic issues, led by former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council; and Management/budget, led by former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese and Kay Coles James, a former Reagan administration official, Heritage Foundation board member, and participant in WORLD’s evangelical insiders survey.

The transition team also includes James Carafano, the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, handling the State Department; retired Army Lt. Gen. Ron Burgess, an evangelical Christian who led the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2009 to 2012, handling intelligence; and Jeffrey Eisenach, an American Enterprise Institute analyst, for the Federal Communications Commission.

Trump received a historically low number of endorsements from the Republican establishment, and some asserted they would not work for his administration. Now that it’s a reality, many have come out of the shadows—often saying they were for Trump the entire time.

The unusual combination of establishment insiders like Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus working alongside anti-establishment crusaders, like Stephen Bannon, former chairman of Breitbart News, could provide many opportunities for combustion, but so far the sides have presented a unified front.

“What I see is great potential,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who had a tumultuous relationship with Trump during his campaign. “What I see is a unified government.”

Trump is expected to reward his close allies and surrogates with high-level positions in the new administration. His short list starts with five men he praised during his acceptance speech early Wednesday morning: Dr. Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former New York City mayor Rudy Guliani, Sessions, and Priebus. Christie, Sessions, and Giuliani are all possible candidates for attorney general, while Carson could head the departments of Education or Health and Human Services, and Priebus could become White House chief of staff. Christie’s also a potential secretary of Commerce and Sessions a possible secretary of Defense.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency after Burgess, is another surrogate likely headed for a senior position. Secretary of Defense would require a waiver, since retired military officers are required to wait seven years before they could be eligible for the position. John Hudson of Foreign Policy Magazine reported Flynn could instead become the White House national security adviser, a key position that does not need Senate confirmation.

Three names top the list for secretary of State: former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, a leading figure in the George W. Bush administration; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump loyalist who has extensive knowledge of European history; and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee led opposition to the Iran nuclear agreement, which Trump has vowed to nullify, calling it the “stupidest deal of all time.”

Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, the first woman to run a presidential campaign, is also likely to play a prominent role in the administration, although her position remains unclear. She refuted a report that she might want to continue running her own business rather than work for the administration. “False,” she tweeted. “Could it be those ‘sources’ want the WH job I've been offered?”