Trump Appointees To Face Five-Year Lobbying Ban

Trump’s transition team didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the departure and inquiring who will now oversee Justice Department staffing.

“The beginning of any transition like this has turmoil because its just the nature of the process, ” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said as he left Trumps transition headquarters in Washington. According to POLITICO it “Sent a chill through K street”.

However, a well-known Republican moderate was pushed out of transition planning. Trump’s selections will be the first signals to anxious worldwide allies about the direction he plans to take US foreign policy.

Last week the president-elect ditched the head of the team, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is mired in political scandal, and replaced him with Pence. For example, Christie had signed a memorandum of understanding, which is necessary to begin the official transition process with the current White House staff.

The White House Correspondents Association called the evasion “unacceptable”.

The New York Times had reported that Trump had “taken calls from the leaders of Egypt, Israel, Russia and Britain, but said they had been conducted haphazardly and without State Department briefings that traditionally guide conversations with foreign leaders”.

For all intents and purposes, Christie no longer has a role in the transition, although formally he was merely demoted to the level of vice chair, a title held by several members of the team.

Additional changes are likely. A campaign official said Freedman was let go because he works as a lobbyist.

“We’re going to make sure that they’re people that we are confident will pass confirmation and they’re going to be people that we think can implement the president-elect’s vision”, Miller said.

Hidden from the public in his Manhattan high-rise, Donald Trump huddled Tuesday with Vice President-elect Mike Pence as he tried to fill out key posts in his Cabinet.

Trump has also pledged to introduce ethics reforms that would expand the definition of lobbying to cut down on the revolving door in Washington, but it’s unclear whether that would apply to his transition.

Pence says he’s looking “forward to finding ways that we can find common ground and move the country forward”. South Carolina Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster, a former USA attorney and state attorney general, said he was asked if he would be interested in being attorney general.

FILE – Stephen Bannon, campaign CEO for President-elect Donald Trump, leaves Trump Tower in New York, Friday, Nov. 11, 2016. Cruz fiercely challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination and relations between the pair were strained for months.

“That’s more like an all-seeing trust!” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen.

Rogers led an investigation into the September 11, 2012, attacks by militants on USA facilities in Benghazi, Libya. The focus of this transition then turns to Pence, whom many viewed during the campaign as a steadying force.

Officials are “making good on President-elect Trump’s promise that we’re not going to have any lobbyists involved with the transition efforts”. They are to meet this weekend, a transition official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss Trump’s schedule publicly.

Former Rep. Mike Rogers, a respected Republican voice on national security issues, announced he was quitting the transition effort. Bolton is also a foreign policy hawk who said previous year the United States should bomb Iran to halt its nuclear program.

A spokesman says Pelosi also has “deep concerns” about the appointment of conservative publisher Steve Bannon as a top White House adviser. The former has been named chief strategist and the latter chief of staff.

Neither Priebus nor Bannon need Senate confirmation for their posts, but Cabinet posts do, and some of Trump’s possible picks could face a hard time winning approval. Already some Republicans have indicated he’d have trouble getting confirmed – including Kentucky Sen. But because of his work consulting for foreign governments, Giuliani faces questions over clear conflicts of interest.

“At this time I will not be entertaining any prospective opportunities”, she said.