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Trump Presidential Transition Thread
Topic Started: Nov 9 2016, 10:16 PM (718 Views)
Webster
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Now that the election is over and we have a President-elect, it is time to follow the transition from Obama to Trump.....

.....God save the Republic. :devil1:
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Webster
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New York Times: Firings & Discord Put Trump Transition Team In Disarray

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WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition was in disarray on Tuesday, marked by firings, infighting and revelations that American allies were blindly dialing in to Trump Tower to try to reach the soon-to-be-leader of the free world.

One week after Mr. Trump scored an upset victory that took him by surprise, his team was improvising the most basic traditions of assuming power. That included working without official State Department briefing materials in his first conversations with foreign leaders.

Two officials who had been handling national security for the transition, former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and Matthew Freedman, a lobbyist who consults with corporations and foreign governments, were fired. Both were part of what officials described as a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser.

The dismissals followed the abrupt firing on Friday of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was replaced as chief of the transition by Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Mr. Kushner, a transition official said, was systematically dismissing people like Mr. Rogers who had ties with Mr. Christie. As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Christie had sent Mr. Kushner’s father to jail.

Prominent American allies were in the meantime scrambling to figure out how and when to contact Mr. Trump. At times, they have been patched through to him in his luxury office tower with little warning, according to a Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations.
-Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/us/politics/trump-transition.html?_r=0
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Daily transition parade at Trump tower begins anew
--From your long-suffering transition pool:

Trump advance team director George Gigicos arrived at 9:40. Reporters asked what he’s doing today. “I don’t know I’m just getting here,” Gigicos said.

Trump campaign COO Eli Miller arrived at 9:43. He did not respond to questions from reporters.

Steve Mnuchin, a member of the transition team executive committee and possible pick for treasury secretary, arrived shortly afterwards and spoke to reporters.

Mnuchin said he and Trump had “talked about taxes.” “I think the other thing — very big focus — is regulatory changes, looking at the creation of an infrastructure bank to fund infrastructure investments. So, there’s a lot of things to do and I’d say the economic priorities are clearly taxes, regulatory, trade, and infrastructure.”

Mnuchin later added: “Right now we’re just still in the planning stages, as you can see, we want to be in a position where in the first 100 days we can execute the economic plan.”

Mnuchin was also asked when the transition team would hold a press conference. He said he was “not commenting.” Mnuchin was also asked about staffing and when Trump would announce an economic team. “I’m really focused on the policies right now and getting things done,” Mnuchin said.

Senator Jeff Sessions arrived at Trump Tower at about 10:02 am toting a rolling suitcase.

He was asked if there would be any announcements today. “I don’t think so,” Sessions said.

Kellyanne Conway arrived at about 10:07 am. She walked over to the elevators from somewhere within Trump Tower. Conway declined to come over and speak to the press though she waved and gave a thumbs up.
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Webster
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Fox News: Pence Removing Lobbyists From Trump Transition Team
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Lobbyists are being purged from official roles in President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, sources told Fox News late Tuesday.

The move to get rid of lobbyists in key roles was one of the first decisions made by Vice President-elect Mike Pence in his role overseeing the construction of a Trump administration.

One source said the decision to remove the lobbyists "makes good on [Trump's] vision of how he wants his government constructed."

Tuesday evening, Pence formally signed a memorandum of understanding putting him in charge of the transition team. A similar document had been signed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who spent months running transition operations before his demotion last week.

The switch slowed Trump's ability to coordinate the transfer of power with the Obama administration. White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine told the Associated Press the administration was waiting on more documents required by law before agencies could begin sharing information with the transition team.

Pence ignored questions from reporters Tuesday, both as he entered Trump Tower with a thick binder tucked under his arm, and as he left six hours later.

A person familiar with the transition efforts told AP different factions in Trump's team "are fighting for power."

"That organization right now is not designed to work," according to the person close to the efforts, who like others involved in the transition, insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the internal process.

The group organized by Christie had featured a litany of lobbyists, former bureaucrats, academics and corporate lawyers. That caused consternation from Trump, who won cheers on the campaign trail for his repeated promises to "drain the swamp" in Washington.

It had also drawn the attention of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who repeatedly attacked Trump during the campaign on behalf of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, Warren called on Trump to replace more than 20 members of his transition team with ties to Wall Street firms and other corporations.

"If you refuse," Warren wrote, "I will oppose you, every step of the way, for the next four years. I will champion the millions of Americans you will fail to protect. I will track your every move, and I will remind Americans, every day, of the actions you take that fail them."
_Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/16/pence-removing-lobbyists-from-trump-transition-team.html
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Vice-president-elect Mike Pence is on Capitol Hill and is to meet shortly with Paul Ryan, after meeting with the House Republican caucus, photographic evidence of which is below.

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--Great having @mike_pence visit today! I’m excited to work with him and @realDonaldTrump to shake up the status quo in Washington, D.C. #MAGA (Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, R-WA - 17 Nov. 2016)
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Trump 'really enjoying' transition, Conway says
--Former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway Conway told the media pool at Trump tower that the president-elect is “really enjoying” the transition.

“He’s just loving this role in transition, he’s a transactional guy, he’s used to delivering results and producing, and so at his desk every day, taking the counsel of many different people, taking many different phone calls, going through paperwork and discussing forming his cabinet and now [inaudible] his senior staff,” Conway said. “He’s really enjoying it.”

Donald Trump Jr arrived on his own at Trump Tower at 9am. “We’ll see”, he replied when asked about nominations today.

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Conway also confirmed that the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, would come to Trump Tower at 5pm to meet with Trump and Pence, the media pool reports.

“We are very sensitive to the fact that President Obama is still in office for the next two months, and we won’t be making diplomatic agreements today,” she said.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Trump's potential registry for immigrants tied to Japanese internment - by proponents
--In a Fox News interview Thursday, Trump supporter Carl Higbie (the tweet below appears to overstate Higbie’s connection with Trump by calling him a “surrogate”) cited the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as precedent for a potential Trump-era registry for immigrants from Muslim countries:

--Trump surrogates are already citing Japanese internment camps from WW II as "precedent" for Muslim registry (Branden Karet, Media Matters - 17 Nov. 2016)

On Wednesday, Trump transition team member Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who helped write tough immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, said in an interview with Reuters that Trump’s policy advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.

“The internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War is an ugly stain on our nation’s history,” People For the American Way President Michael Keegan said in a statement. “Republicans at every level should rush to condemn any hint that we’d repeat that mistake by targeting Muslims or any other minority group.”

“To be clear: Donald Trump’s campaign promise to create a registry of Muslims is unconstitutional and un-American. Any elected official or public leader who purports to care about religious liberty has an obligation to speak out against this repugnant attack on the First Amendment. Politicians who brush these threats aside are complicit in the worst kind of bigotry.”
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Webster
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(The Guardian) After a meeting just then with Henry Kissinger, Trump releases a statement saying he appreciates “him sharing his thoughts with me.” Via BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray:

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--transition team readout of Trump-Kissinger meeting (Rosie Gray, Buzzfeed News - 17 Nov. 2016)

--Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/17/sessions-flynn-and-pompeo-who-are-the-potential-trump-cabinet-picks-
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(The Guardian) Texas congressman Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House financial services committee, which could assist in the dismantling of Dodd-Frank financial regulations – or not – has just spoken with president-elect Trump about financial reform, he tells the transition pool:

Hensarling exited the elevators shortly after 1pm and briefly addressed the press.

Question: how was the meeting? Did you talk about financial reform?

Jeb Hensarling: “Obviously we talked about financial reform. I just wanted to tell the President-elect I’m on his team. Very excited to help drain the swamp, very excited to help get this economy working for working Americans again. We were talking tax policy, we were talking Dodd Frank, we were talking trade, this was a wonderful conversation, and I stand ready to help the President in any capacity possible. I’ve got a great position in public policy today, if he wants to talk to me obviously, about serving somewhere else, we’ll look at serving somewhere else. But regardless, I’m on his team, I’m excited for what he can do for America, it was just a real honor to be here.

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Webster
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(The Guardian) Trump 'unbelievably impressed' with senator Sessions
--Team Trump releases a statement saying the president-elect is “unbelievably impressed” with senator Jeff Sessions, who endorsed Trump back in February (the first senator and nearly the first member of congress to do so) and has spent much of the last nine months campaigning with him.

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--"Unbelievably impressed" and "phenomenal" - hint hint? (Hallie Jackson, NBC News - 17 Nov. 2016)

Sessions may be up for a cabinet post. Let’s call it: after all that work, Sessions is up for something juicy.

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Past accusations of racism against Sessions, who’s from Alabama, could potentially complicate any senate confirmation hearing, but on the other had Jeff Sessions has a lot of friends in the senate and he would seem to be quite confirmable.

Read more about Sessions’ skeletons:

Jeff Sessions is known as one of most anti-immigration members of the Senate.

In a rare move, his nomination by Ronald Reagan to be a federal judge was rejected by Congress in 1986 after several attorneys testified that he had made racist comments.

Justice department official Gerald Hebert claimed Sessions had described the respected civil rights campaigns as “un-American”. Hebert also said Sessions had described the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union as “Communist inspired”. [...]

A prosecutor, Thomas H Figures, told congress Sessions had thought the Ku Klux Klan was “OK until I found they smoked pot”. Sessions said he had been joking and that the comment was so ludicrous he could not think anyone would take him seriously.

Figures, an African-American, also testified that Sessions had called him “boy”. Sessions denied the claim.

-Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/17/sessions-flynn-and-pompeo-who-are-the-potential-trump-cabinet-picks-
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(The Guardian) Trump is planning 'victory tour,' aide says
--George Gigicos, the campaign’s advance team director, briefly talked about Trump’s first trip with the press pool at Trump tower.

“We’re working on a victory tour now, it will happen in the next couple of weeks,” Gigicos said. “After Thanksgiving.”

Gigicos said the tour would go “obviously to the states that we won and the swing states we flipped over.”
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(Los Angeles Times) Trump offers retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn national security advisor job

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--Donald Trump has offered retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn the job of national security advisor.

That's according to a senior Trump official.

The official wouldn't say whether Flynn has officially accepted the job. Flynn has been a close advisor to Trump throughout the presidential campaign and has worked with him on national security issues during the transition.

The national security advisor does not require Senate confirmation. The job is based in the White House and its occupant has frequent access to the president.

The official was not authorized to discuss the offer publicly so insisted on anonymity.
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(The Guardian) Trump transition names several nominees, appointees
--Donald Trump has reportedly tapped several conservative figures for key positions in his coming administration, ranging from a potential attorney general to the new director of the CIA.

According to multiple media reports, Trump has offered Alabama senator Jeff Sessions the job of US attorney general, the most senior-level position in the powerful Department of Justice. The New York Times, CBS News and Bloomberg, among others, all reported this morning that the rightwing, anti-immigration senator was the president-elect’s pick for the job.

Separately, the Washington Post and Reuters reported that Republican congressman Mike Pompeo had been offered the job of CIA chief. Pompeo is a vocal critic of the Iran nuclear deal and a supporter of NSA bulk data collection.

Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer, who is involved in the Trump presidential transition, would not confirm the reports about Sessions. “Until Donald Trump says it, it’s not official,” Spicer told CNN.

Sessions, one of Trump’s earliest backers during the Republican primary campaign, has served in the Senate since 1997, and served as Alabama’s attorney general for two years before that. The lawmaker has the rare distinction of once being passed over for a federal judgeship over racist comments he allegedly made.

During Sessions’ confirmation hearing in 1986, lawmakers heard testimony that Sessions called respected civil rights organizations “communist inspired”. In another set of testimony, a prosecutor told Congress that Sessions had said he thought the Ku Klux Klan was “OK until I found out they smoked pot”. Sessions said the comment was a joke, but his judgeship was rejected.

Trump has also offered the job of national security adviser to Michael Flynn, a former military intelligence chief who has been a vocal critic of the Obama administration, according to a senior Trump official.
-Read more (1): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/17/david-petraeus-secretary-of-state-donald-trump
-Read more (2): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/17/sessions-flynn-and-pompeo-who-are-the-potential-trump-cabinet-picks-
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(The Guardian) The People For the American Way has issued a statement in response to reports that president-elect Donald Trump will nominate Alabama senator Jeff Sessions to serve as the next attorney general.

“The last time Senator Sessions sought Senate confirmation was 1986 when he was nominated to be a federal judge,” said Michael Keegan. “Despite the fact that Republicans controlled the chamber at the time, he was rejected because of a long history of racially insensitive remarks and a disastrous record on civil rights.”

“In the last 30 years, Sessions has done nothing that demonstrates that the Senate’s judgement was incorrect or that he’s learned from his mistakes,” Keegan continued. “Instead, he’s spent years making a name for himself as one of the Senate’s most extreme anti-immigrant voices, even attacking the Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. As a senator he’s voted in favor of torture programs under the Bush administration and opposed hate crime protections for LGBT people.

“If anyone still thinks that Donald Trump might govern with more responsibility or moderation than he campaigned, this nomination is a wakeup call. The Senate should reject this nomination.”
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(The Guardian) President-elect Donald Trump announces attorney general, CIA director, national security advisor
--President-elect Donald Trump has announced the nomination of Alabama senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general and Kansas congressman Mike Pompeo as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as the selection of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to serve as his national security advisor.

“It is an honor to nominate US Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as Attorney General of the United States,” Trump said in a release issued by the transition team. “Jeff has been a highly respected member of the US Senate for 20 years. He is a world-class legal mind and considered a truly great attorney general and US attorney in the state of Alabama. Jeff is greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows him.”

Sessions declared in the same release that he is “humbled to have been asked” to serve in the role as the head of the Justice Department. “My previous 15 years working in the Department of Justice were extraordinarily fulfilling. I love the department, its people and its mission. I can think of no greater honor than to lead them. With the support of my Senate colleagues, I will give all my strength to advance the department’s highest ideals. I enthusiastically embrace president-elect Trump’s vision for ‘one America,’ and his commitment to equal justice under law. I look forward to fulfilling my duties with an unwavering dedication to fairness and impartiality.”

Speaking to pool reporters in Trump Tower, vice president-elect Mike Pence said that “the president-elect is a man of action and we’ve got a great number of men and women with great qualifications look forward to serving in this administration and I am just humbled to be a part of it. Our agency teams arrived in Washington DC this morning and I am very confident it will be a smooth transition that will serve to lead this country forward and make America great again.”

Trump pledged to work alongside Flynn as his national security advisor to “defeat radical Islamic terrorism, navigate geopolitical challenges and keep Americans safe at home and abroad. General Flynn is one of the country’s foremost experts on military and intelligence matters and he will be an invaluable asset to me and my administration.”

Flynn, too, was “deeply humbled and honored to accept the position as national security advisor to serve both our country and our nation’s next president.”

Pompeo, who represents Kansas’ fourth congressional district, currently serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

“I am honored to have been given this opportunity to serve and to work alongside president-elect Donald J. Trump to keep America safe,” Pompeo said in a statement. “I also look forward to working with America’s intelligence warriors, who do so much to protect Americans each and every day.”

Pompeo “has served our country with honor and spent his life fighting for the security of our citizens,” Trump said. “Mike graduated number one in his class at West Point and is a graduate of Harvard Law School where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He will be a brilliant and unrelenting leader for our intelligence community to ensure the safety of Americans and our allies.”
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(The Guardian) Vermont senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee that will vote on Jeff Sessions’ confirmation, has issued a statement outlining “significant disagreements” he has had with Sessions over the years, but calling for “a full and fair process.”

“The attorney general serves as the chief law enforcement officer in the country. The attorney general must be independent and fair. The attorney general must be deeply committed to the rule of law and must ensure that all people are treated equally before the law,” Leahy said. “This means that he or she is also the chief protector of civil rights and civil liberties for everyone in our nation. That has never been more important than in this moment, when hate crimes have spiked across the country, especially against Muslim and LGBTQ Americans. And when we have a president-elect who has proposed religious tests, a return to torture, and a deportation force that threatens to remove millions of immigrants.”

“Senator Sessions and I have had significant disagreements over the years, particularly on civil rights, voting rights, immigration and criminal justice issues,” Leahy continued. “But unlike Republicans’ practice of unprecedented obstruction of President Obama’s nominees, I believe nominees deserve a full and fair process before the Senate. The American people deserve to learn about Senator Sessions’ record at the public Senate judiciary committee hearing.”
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