President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to push back against news reports describing a chaotic transition to power, saying the process of selecting Cabinet secretaries and working with President Barack Obama's administration "is going so smoothly."
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Trump spent another day ensconced in his New York skyscraper, beyond the public eye. Aides and allies vouched for the transition efforts on his behalf, suggesting some commotion was to be expected.
"The beginning of any transition like this has turmoil because it's just the nature of the process," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said as he left Trump's transition headquarters in Washington. He said the picture of Trump's administration would become clearer over the next two or three weeks.
Others close to the transition process described advisers "fighting for power."
[TRUMP: Timeline of president-elect’s career + list of appointments so far]
Eric Trump, one of the president-elect's sons, raised expectations of imminent progress Wednesday, telling reporters in the morning that appointments were "likely" to come during the day. Then, other Trump aides suggested a slower pace.
"We're not going to rush to put names forward until we're absolutely sure," Trump spokesman Jason Miller said hours later. "We're going to make sure that they're people we're confident will pass confirmation and we think can implement the president-elect's vision."
As Trump met with senior advisers to discuss potential Cabinet candidates, there were further signs that power in his transition effort was consolidating within an ever-smaller group of loyalists generally not aligned with Republican officials in Washington.
Among them is Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a top Trump adviser known for his hard-line views on immigration. His former staff director at the Senate Judiciary Committee, Brian Benczkowski, is now helping manage the Justice Department transition for Trump's team, according to two prominent Republican lawyers with knowledge of the matter.
Benczkowski replaced Kevin O'Connor, a former U.S. attorney and associate attorney general who had been managing the Justice Department transition, the lawyers said. A white-collar defense attorney at Kirkland & Ellis, Benczkowski previously worked in a number of senior Justice Department jobs and is a respected lawyer.
His elevation is another indication that power has shifted away from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was replaced last week as head of the transition team by Vice President-elect Mike Pence and who had been considered an emissary to more mainstream Republicans.
Benczkowski declined to comment.
Trump Tower abuzz
The new developments came as Sessions himself emerged as a top candidate for defense secretary, along with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. Both would bring hawkish views and military experience, but neither has executive experience running a bureaucracy such as the Pentagon.
Trump appeared to be weighing an eclectic mix of individuals for top Cabinet posts, including longtime loyalists, former rivals and even a Democrat. A senior transition official said Trump's team met Wednesday with Eva Moskowitz, a former New York council member and charter school founder who is being considered for education secretary.
Others who passed through the marble lobby of Trump Tower included Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., a potential pick for Health and Human Services, and Ray Washburne, a Dallas businessman and top GOP fundraiser in the mix for commerce secretary. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft also entered the gilded elevators for meetings, and Trump officials said later that the president-elect also met with Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., and Wall Street financier and economic adviser Steve Feinberg.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who competed with Trump during the Republican primary but ultimately endorsed the businessman, could get a top job such as attorney general. An official said, however, Cruz is not viewed as a top contender. The official, like others, wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the transition talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Others mentioned for Cabinet posts: Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a Kansas Republican, said someone close to the transition contacted him about becoming agriculture secretary. South Carolina Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster, a former U.S. attorney and state attorney general, said he was asked if he would be interested in being attorney general. McMaster also said he was told South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was being considered for secretary of state.
Japan's Abe to visit
On his Twitter account, Trump took aim at a favorite target, The New York Times, which reported Wednesday that the transition has been marked by firings and infighting, and that U.S. allies were having trouble reaching Trump at Trump Tower as he plans his government.
"The failing nytimes story is so totally wrong on transition. ... I have received and taken calls from many foreign leaders," Trump wrote in a series of posts on the microblogging site. He also denied reports that his transition team has sought security clearances for his children.
The Times 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.
Trump planned to meet today in New York with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his first get-together with a world leader as president-elect. The State Department has said it had yet to hear from Trump's transition team, raising the prospect of the Republican holding the meeting without any input from career diplomats with deep experience dealing with Japan.
Other scheduled meetings include Haley, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
Legal and procedural delays by Trump's transition team continued Wednesday, all but freezing the traditional handoff of critical information from the current administration more than a week after Trump won the presidential election.
White House aides said Obama administration officials at agencies across the government remained legally barred from delivering the normal guidance and briefings to Trump's transition team because essential documents still had not been completed.
A wholesale shake-up of Trump's team -- replacing Christie and the transition staff he had assembled -- has forced Pence to sign a new memorandum of understanding, a legally required document. White House officials said Pence delivered that document to them on Tuesday.
But by Wednesday night, Trump's team still had not delivered a series of required, supporting documents, including certifications that each transition member would abide by a code of conduct and would not divulge sensitive information about the inner workings of the government.
People close to the transition said the first wave of transition teams was not expected in Washington until today.
The "landing teams" for the State Department, the Justice Department, the Pentagon and the National Security Council will be announced and begin interacting with the Obama administration today, Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer said late Wednesday in the transition team's first conference call with reporters. Economic-policy landing teams will be announced next week, followed by teams devoted to domestic policy and independent federal agencies.
The Washington Post also has reported about turbulence in Trump's transition. But Peter Hoekstra, a Republican former congressman from Michigan, defended Trump in an interview Wednesday, saying the president-elect's team has "a monumental job to do and a short time to do it."
The reported bloodletting in Trump's transition team that began with last week's ouster of Christie had escalated Tuesday with new departures, particularly in the area of national security.
Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., announced that he had left his position as the transition's senior national security adviser. Rogers was among at least four transition officials purged this week, apparently because of perceived connections to Christie.
Miller, the spokesman for Trump, told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the effort to fill staff positions in the new administration was "very calm, it's very structured." He said that reports of chaos were being spread by disgruntled former members of the transition or people bitter about the election results.
Pence, who was put in charge of the transition last Friday, has counseled Trump not to feel pressured to make announcements rashly, according to people familiar with the deliberations inside Trump Tower in Manhattan. Miller said Trump was taking "a very structured, methodical approach" to staffing.
Miller also rejected as "completely inaccurate" reports that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, had been purging the transition team of people allied with Christie. "Couldn't be further from the truth," Miller said.
Kushner's father, Charles Kushner, in 2004 pleaded guilty to 18 felony counts of tax fraud, election violations and witness tampering and was later sentenced to two years in federal prison. Christie, a U.S. attorney in New Jersey at the time, was the lead prosecutor.
Lobbyists in spotlight
But Miller confirmed that Pence had directed that the transition should not include lobbyists, confirming reports that some existing members of the team had been asked to leave.
Miller said officials were "making good on President-elect Trump's promise that we're not going to have any lobbyists involved with the transition efforts. When we talk about draining the swamp, this is one of the first steps. And so, the bottom line is, we're going to get the transition team where we need it to be."
At least two people Trump's transition team is considering for Cabinet level positions have ties to the lobbying world. Trump's military adviser Mike Flynn, who runs a consulting firm that lobbies on defense matters, is being considered for defense secretary. And Jeffrey Holmstead, whose name has been floated in several reports as a potential EPA administrator, lobbies for energy companies.
For Trump, the issue is of increased importance because of the promises he made on the campaign trail and the anti-establishment wave he rode to victory.
Under the rules, announced by Spicer, lobbyists joining the Trump team would have to terminate their formal registration to lobby.
He said Trump's lobbying ban will require administration members to agree that they will not lobby the federal government for five years after they leave service. Federal lobbying bans now last generally for one or two years, depending on the office.
Matthew Sanderson, a government ethics compliance lawyer, said, "The devil is in the details. But if it is as they described it, a five-year ban on becoming a federal lobbyist would constitute a real and significant measure to fight the revolving door that happens in Washington."
Information for this article was contributed by Jerry Markon, Karen DeYoung, Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, Missy Ryan, Adam Entous, Julie Tate and Catherine Ho of The Washington Post; by Michael D. Shear, Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael S. Schmidt of The New York Times; and by Julie Pace, Ken Thomas, Jill Colvin, Jon Lemire, Matthew Pennington and staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 11/17/2016