Roger Stone: Trump compiling his own list of Cabinet picks

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s last campaign chief and now a top adviser to his transition team, said that reports of disorganization within the team were untrue, although she did say that probably no announcements of new appointments would be made on Wednesday. She says she hopes to work with Trump on school choice and suggests there are “positive signs” the president-elect will govern differently than he campaigned.

But he has not held a news conference to field questions from other reporters, who would nearly certainly ask about reports of a rocky transition, Cabinet appointees and the many potential conflicts of interest posed by Trump’s business interests around the world.

He said he expects Trump to choose his Cabinet with a “bipartisan flavor”.

However, a well-known Republican moderate was pushed out of transition planning.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who left the transition team this week, told CNN: “Is there a little confusion in NY right yet?”

Aides to Trump acknowledged that members of the transition team had been fired since the ouster of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey as the head of the transition.

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

The president-elect criticized, and misrepresented, a report in The New York Times that said Trump had taken calls from several world leaders, but had done so haphazardly and without the normal State Department briefings that traditionally guide conversations with foreign leaders.

Additional changes are likely.

“Once you are president, once you are president-elect, it is a matter of tradition, it is a matter of security, it is a matter of national interest that you don’t go dark – you’re not really allowed to be a private person anymore”, said Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

– A flurry of activity unfolded at Trump Tower Wednesday as politicians, business executives and education leaders met with President-elect Donald Trump. The focus of this transition then turns to Pence, whom many viewed during the campaign as a steadying force.

Late Wednesday, Trump aides announced that his transition teams would not include lobbyists and that members of Trump’s administration would be barred from lobbying for five years after they leave government service.

On Monday Trump touted his call with Russian President Vladimir Putin – whom he repeatedly praised throughout the campaign even as us intelligence found the Russian government had hacked into the Democratic National Committee to try to influence the American elections. He will eventually need to fill roughly 4,000 open positions. Carl Higbie, a former Navy SEAL and spokesman for a pro-Trump super PAC, argued Wednesday that such a system would be both legal and a good idea. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Trump spokesman Jason Miller denied that Kushner was responsible for pushing Christie and his allies off the team.

Pence met Wednesday with Biden at the Naval Observatory, the vice presidential residence in leafy northwest Washington, D.C. Biden expressed confidence that by Trump’s January 20 inauguration, “everything will be in good hands”.

A protester walks along the sidewalk across the street from Trump Tower where President-elect Donald Trump continued meetings with members of his transition team, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016, in NY.

Donald Trump vilified and condemned reporters when he was a candidate. The move is part of the government transition before Trump’s January 20 inauguration.

Rogers led an investigation into the September 11, 2012, attacks by militants on USA facilities in Benghazi, Libya. The probe dismissed numerous conspiracy theories that had been circulated by critics of Clinton, who was then secretary of state. He’s “gone, not involved – on the sideline”, according to one source, as is ally Mike Rogers.

But some of his contacts have stretched the limits of the usual protocol, leaving some USA allies rattled about Trump’s foreign policy instincts and priorities.

He said the picture of Mr Trump’s administration would become clearer over the next two or three weeks.

Loyalists such as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton were being considered for secretary of state, according to sources close to Trump.

The New York Times was one of his harshest critics during the election campaign.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker is also under consideration for top United States diplomat.

Flynn, who served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has advised Trump on national security issues for months.

Trump has filled two positions so far.

Mr. Gaffney has long advanced baseless conspiracy theories, including that President Obama might be a closet Muslim.

So-called landing teams, which President Barack Obama installed at federal agencies within days of the election for his own transition, had been expected to arrive in DC Monday.