Hiccups slow Trump's team

NEW YORK -- In his Manhattan high-rise, President-elect Donald Trump met Tuesday with Vice President-elect Mike Pence as he worked to fill key posts in his Cabinet. But the transition team appeared to be straining under the challenge of setting up a new administration.

Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a respected Republican voice on national security issues, announced he was quitting the transition effort. And an apparent clerical oversight held up the Trump team's ability to coordinate with President Barack Obama's White House.

Trump himself broke with protocol Tuesday night by leaving Trump Tower without his press contingent. The transition team had told reporters and photographers there would be no movement by the president-elect for the rest of the day and night, but less than two hours later a presidential-style motorcade rolled out of the building, suggesting that Trump was on the move and leaving reporters scrambling.

Trump turned up at Club 21, a midtown Manhattan restaurant where he was having dinner with his family. Reporters were not allowed inside.

[TRUMP: Timeline of president-elect’s career + list of appointments so far]

A short time later, a tweet appeared on Trump's account: "Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions. I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!"

In a statement Tuesday, Rogers, who as a congressman from Michigan led the House Intelligence Committee, said he was "proud of the team that we assembled at Trump for America." And he said he was "pleased to hand off our work" to a new transition team led by Pence.

Two individuals with direct knowledge of the issue said Rogers was pushed out of the team.

In addition, a transition official said Tuesday that Trump had removed a second senior defense and foreign policy official from his transition team -- Matthew Freedman, who runs a Washington consulting firm that advises foreign governments and companies seeking to do business with the U.S. government.

Freedman, who had been in charge of coordinating Trump's calls to world leaders after his election, is a former business associate of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager.

Pence, now running the transition team, ignored questions from reporters as he entered Trump Tower, a thick binder tucked under his arm, and as he left six hours later. He took over from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who spent months running transition operations before his demotion last week.

Some efforts were frozen, senior White House officials said, because Pence did not until Tuesday night sign legally required paperwork to allow his team to begin collaborating with Obama's aides on the handover. Christie had signed the document, but Pence's promotion makes it invalid. By law, the document must be signed by the chairman of the transition operation or his designee.

Among other things, the paperwork serves as a mutual nondisclosure agreement for both sides, ensuring that members of the president-elect's team do not divulge information about the inner workings of the government that they learn during the transition period, and that the president's aides do not reveal anything they may discover about the incoming administration's plans.

Brandi Hoffine, a White House spokesman, said the administration was waiting on more documents required by law before agencies could begin sharing information with the transition team. Those documents include a list of all transition team members and certification that they meet a code of conduct barring conflicts of interest.

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

A number of Christie allies have been told they were no longer in line for top posts, according to several people familiar with the transition, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly.

A former U.S. official with ties to the Trump team described the ousters of Rogers and others as a "bloodletting of anybody that associated in any way on the transition with Christie" and said that the departures were engineered by two Trump loyalists who have taken control of who will get national security posts in the administration: retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Indeed, Trump effectively created two power centers in his White House even before taking office. He named Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus as his chief of staff and media executive Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist, but called them "equal partners." Kushner is also deeply involved in the transition, creating another layer of uncertainty about who is making decisions.

'Jobs as lollipops'

The disarray caught the attention of some senior Republicans who criticized Trump during his campaign but said after he won that they would not necessarily rule out joining his administration or advising him.

Former GOP national security official Eliot Cohen blasted Trump's team on Twitter, calling them "angry, arrogant." Cohen opposed Trump during the campaign, but in recent days, he said those who feel duty-bound to work in a Trump administration should do so. But he said Tuesday that after an exchange with Trump's team, he had changed his recommendation to "stay away."

Cohen, who last week had urged career officials to serve in Trump's administration, said in an interview that a longtime friend and senior transition team official had asked him to submit names of possible national security appointees. After he suggested several people, Cohen said, his friend emailed him back in terms he described as "very weird, very disturbing."

"It was accusations that 'you guys are trying to insinuate yourselves into the administration ... all of YOU LOST.' ... it became clear to me that they view jobs as lollipops, things you give out to good boys and girls," said Cohen, who would not identify his friend.

Cohen also said the transition official was "completely dismissive" of concerns raised about Trump's appointment of Bannon, whom Trump's advisers have strongly defended.

His friend's email conveyed the feeling that "'we're so glad to see the bicoastal elites get theirs,'" added Cohen, who described the response as "unhinged."

With Trump out of sight for several days, his allies engaged in an unusual round of public speculation about his potential appointments -- including their own futures -- as the president-elect and his aides weighed the nation's top national security posts.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani seemed to be angling for secretary of state. But Trump's transition team was reviewing Giuliani's paid consulting work for foreign governments, which could delay a nomination or bump Giuliani to a different position, according to a person briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Giuliani founded his own firm in 2001, Giuliani Partners, and helped businesses on behalf of foreign governments, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Giuliani defended his 15 years in the private sector as a credential for the job.

"I have friends all over the world," Giuliani said in an interview. "This is not a new thing for me. When you become the mayor, you become interested in foreign policy. When I left, my major work was legal and security around the world."

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, questioned Giuliani's fitness for the job, pointing to his list of paid speeches, his work for foreign governments and his support for the Iraq War.

A Trump official said John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, remained in contention for secretary of state.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a Trump ally and immigration hard-liner, is said to be a contender for defense secretary, along with U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Flynn.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has been a confidant to Trump since the end of the Republican primaries, said he is unlikely to join the administration but will remain an informal adviser.

Russia 'reset' ripped

Also on Tuesday, perhaps the most influential Republican on national security matters, Arizona Sen. John McCain, weighed in on Trump's efforts to work with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying any efforts to "reset" relations with Russia are unacceptable.

"With the U.S. presidential transition underway, Vladimir Putin has said in recent days that he wants to improve relations with the United States," the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, who had a difficult relationship with Trump during the campaign, said in a statement released by his office.

"We should place as much faith in such statements as any other made by a former KGB agent who has plunged his country into tyranny, murdered his political opponents, invaded his neighbors, threatened America's allies, and attempted to undermine America's elections," he said.

That development followed a telephone call Monday between Trump and Putin, during which they agreed that relations between their countries were "unsatisfactory" and vowed to work together to improve them, the Kremlin said in a statement.

In his statement, McCain pointed out that Russia, in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad, resumed large-scale bombardment Tuesday in Syria.

"The Obama administration's last attempt at resetting relations with Russia culminated in Putin's invasion of Ukraine and military intervention in the Middle East," McCain said. "At the very least, the price of another 'reset' would be complicity in Putin and Assad's butchery of the Syrian people."

"That is an unacceptable price for a great nation. When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side [of] those fighting tyranny," McCain added. "That is where we must stand again."

And Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., proposed that Congress hold a series of hearings on "Russia's misadventures throughout the world" -- including whether they were involved in cyberattacks to disrupt the U.S. elections.

"Here's what I would tell Republicans: We cannot sit on the sidelines as a party and let allegations against a foreign government interfering in our election process go unanswered because it may have been beneficial to our cause," Graham added.

Information for this article was contributed by Ken Thomas, Julie Pace, Jonathan Lemire, Jill Colvin, Josh Lederman, Robert Burns and Erica Werner of The Associated Press; by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Eric Lipton, Adam Goldman, Ashley Parker, Mark Landler, Jo Becker and staff members of The New York Times; by Jerry Markon, Karen DeYoung, Greg Miller, Andrew Roth, Robert Costa, Elise Viebeck and Jenna Johnson of The Washington Post; and by Lisa Mascaro of Tribune News Service.

A Section on 11/16/2016