President-elect Trump rearranged the leadership of his transition team on Friday, elevating Vice President-elect Mike Pence to its helm and expanding Sen. Jeff Sessions’ influence over the process.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, weakened over the bridgegate scandal, will shift from leader of the transition team to a vice chair alongside Rudy Giuliani, according to a news release from Trump.
Rick Dearborn, Sessions’ chief of staff, will become the team’s executive director.
The changes come as Trump prepares to fill the most consequential roles in his administration. The people who hold top White House staff positions, such as chief of staff, communications director, national security adviser and press secretary, wield enormous influence over the president’s agenda and the operation of the government.
Trump announced Friday that he added three of his children — Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. — to the executive committee of his transition team, as well as son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Other new committee members included conservative congressional figures, such as Rep. Marsha Blackburn and Rep. Lou Barletta, business leaders such as Peter Thiel and Anthony Scaramucci and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.
Trump filled staff positions on the transition team with many of the same aides who delivered his decisive victory over Hillary Clinton this week.
He named Kellyanne Conway, his former campaign manager, as his senior adviser for the transition process, and placed Stephen Miller, a top adviser who joined the Trump campaign during the GOP primary, in charge of policy.
Like Dearborn, Miller is an alum of Sessions’ Senate office.
Hope Hicks joined the transition team as national press secretary just one day after traveling to Washington with Trump to meet with members of President Obama’s staff at the White House. While Trump spoke privately with Obama, Hicks sat down with Jen Psaki, White House communications director.
Christie, who served as head of the Trump transition team until this week, thanked Trump for allowing him to preside over the pre-election phase of the transition in a statement Friday.
“I am proud to have run the pre-election phase of the transition team along with a thoroughly professional and dedicated team of people. They have prepared an outstanding template for President-elect Trump in all of the requested areas of Agency Review, Policy Implementation, Presidential Personnel and President-Elect and Vice-President-Elect support,” Christie said. “As we now enter the post-election phase, I look forward to working with Vice-President Elect Pence and the rest of the leadership team to implement that template as we prepare for January 20, 2017.”
