Via: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/us/po ... .html?_r=0
WASHINGTON — Vice President-elect Mike Pence will take over the job of leading Donald J. Trump’s transition effort, taking the helm from Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, as Mr. Trump moves to assemble a government after his stunning upset victory, several sources close to the transition team said on Friday.
Mr. Christie had been in charge of the transition for the last several months, but the surprise nature of Mr. Trump’s victory made it critical to move more quickly to assemble a team.
The future role of Mr. Christie will be a very transparent indicator of just how Warren Harding Ass this administration will be. They're not dropping his ass quite yet...
The president-elect told advisers he wanted to tap Mr. Pence’s Washington experience and contacts to help move the process along, according to people familiar with the discussions. An executive committee, which will include members of Congress, will advise Mr. Pence as the process moves forward.
Mr. Christie, along with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and Michael T. Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who has been a top campaign supporter, will serve as vice chairs of the transition, the sources said.
For those curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_T._Flynn
Pretty clear that the Trumps are as shocked by the Clintons (and the rest of us, fuck) about their win...
There are some indications that the transition effort was slow to start up, perhaps the result of Mr. Trump’s upset victory, which caught much of the political world by surprise. At least a few of the people helping organize the search for Mr. Trump were tapped at the last minute, while others have been preparing quietly for weeks.
At the Pentagon and the State Department, officials of the Obama administration said Thursday that they had not yet heard from Mr. Trump’s transition team about beginning the complex work of transferring responsibilities and authority. A spokesman for the State Department said he did not have “any firm word” on when briefings might begin for designated officials from the new government.
Even as Mr. Trump moves to create a new administration, his transition team is being reshaped. It has been led by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey since May, when Mr. Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee. That was over the objections of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The transition team was treated as something of a backwater. Mr. Trump appeared to care little about it, and the adviser who was most involved with it, Paul Manafort, left the campaign in August. With Mr. Trump preparing to take office in less than 90 days, the transition work has abruptly come to life again, but with a lag in who might get slots.
Peter Thiel is still a rumor, but a solid one:
Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley investor, was offered a role on the team and is under consideration to lead it, according to one person briefed on the matter.
Still, the pending reorganization hasn’t stopped a steady flow of potential appointees from being mentioned.
The critical position of chief of staff — the gatekeeper for the president inside the West Wing — is expected to come down to a choice between Mr. Bannon, the editor of Breitbart News who was chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, and Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Those two couldn't be more different, in terms of their own personal approaches, and in terms of what their appointment would signal. I find it very hard to believe Team Trump would choose Priebus, but I was stunned when Obama appointed Clinton, too.
Mr. Giuliani told CNN on Thursday that he might accept an appointment as attorney general, saying that “there’s probably nobody that knows the Justice Department better than me.”
Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive and Mr. Trump’s campaign finance chairman, is said to be a serious contender for Treasury secretary (though Carl Icahn, the investor, and Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, have also been mentioned in the news media).
As rapacious vampire egomaniacs go, Carl Icahn is at least a contrarian honey badger rather than a Good Ol Boys Club team player. He would be nearly as entertaining as Mr. Trump, for economics nerds like myself.