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VIVIAN SALAMA,Associated Press 23 hours ago
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump's
transition team is rich with lobbyists and includes a climate change-denier
and an ex-federal prosecutor involved in the mass firings of U.S. attorneys.
Some of the individuals listed in an organizational chart of Trump's top
transition personnel, obtained by The Associated Press:
DEFENSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg has been working closely with Trump adviser
and retired Army Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, advising the Trump campaign on matters
relating to foreign policy and national security. He was chief operating
officer of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, the interim governing
body following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. He previously worked as
executive vice president of research and technology for Virginia-based
information technology firm CACI International, which works as a contractor
for defense, intelligence and homeland security agencies.
___
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the House intelligence committee,
has been named to the executive committee of Trump's transition committee. In
the role, Nunes said he would help advise the president-elect on appointing
individuals to Cabinet and other top positions in the next administration.
___
Retired Lt. Gen. Ron Burgess served in the Army for 38 years. He spent most
of his tenure working in top military intelligence and security assignments.
He was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2009 until July 2012.
In the fall, he lamented in a speech in Alexander City, Alabama, that new
U.S. military recruits will likely be fighting in the Middle East for years
to come. He wished current policymakers well and said, "We can't just keep
playing this same military version of whack-a-mole."
___
Mira Ricardel has served as acting assistant secretary of defense for
international security policy during the George W. Bush administration from
2003 to 2005. She is a former vice president of business development for
Boeing Strategic Missile & Defense Systems, a company that receives a steady
flow of contracts from the Defense Department and is a major player in the
defense industry.
___
Retired Brig. Gen. Michael Meese is among the individuals leading the
transition for the Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2005, he served as
executive director of the secretary of the Army's transition team. He is also
a former chief operating officer for the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid
Association, a 136-year-old nonprofit organization that assists the armed
forces community with insurance, financial planning, survivor assistance and
other benefits.
___
Mike Rogers is taking the lead on crafting Trump's national security team.
The former Michigan congressman chaired the House intelligence committee.
Rogers is a former U.S. Army officer and FBI special agent. He is a board
member of IronNet Cybersecurity, a consultancy run by former NSA director
Keith Alexander.
STATE DEPARTMENT
Jim Carafano is the Heritage Foundation's vice president for foreign and
defense policy studies and is tasked with transforming the State Department.
A 25-year Army veteran, Carafano has been advising Trump on terrorism and
border security. In a recent radio interview, Carafano said he told Trump
that the next administration must pay more attention to transnational
criminal cartels, work more closely with state and local governments to
enforce border security, and fight al-Qaida globally.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT
David R. Malpass is the founder and president of Encima Global LLC, an
economic research and consulting firm based in New York City. He served as
deputy assistant treasury secretary under President Ronald Reagan and deputy
assistant secretary of state under President George W. Bush.
Malpass spent 15 years at Bear Stearns. In a 2007 Wall Street Journal
editorial, published nine months before the collapse of his own firm, he
wrote: "Housing and debt markets are not that big a part of the U.S. economy,
or of job creation. It's more likely the economy is sturdy and will grow
solidly in coming months, and perhaps years."
___
Bill Walton is a senior fellow of the Center on Wealth, Poverty and Morality
at the Discovery Institute and vice president of the Council for National
Policy. He is also chairman of Rush River Entertainment, which focuses on
producing feature films.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Kevin O'Connor served as U.S. attorney in Connecticut from 2002 to 2008,
overseeing the office that secured a corruption guilty plea from ex-Gov. John
Rowland. He served briefly as chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales, a George W. Bush appointee who resigned from the Justice Department
in 2007 amid a scandal over the firing of U.S. attorneys. After working as a
partner at the Bracewell & Giuliani law firm, O'Connor is now managing
director and general counsel for Point72 Asset Management, which manages the
personal wealth of billionaire hedge fund executive Steven A. Cohen.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Myron Ebell is the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute. Sometimes called a climate
"denier-in-chief," he has long had ties to the fossil fuel industry. Ebell
has called for abolition of the EPA and wants to scrap the Paris climate
treaty, a deal Trump has vowed to withdraw from.
LABOR DEPARTMENT
J. Steven Hart is a former Justice Department special assistant in charge of
processing federal judicial nominations under President Ronald Reagan. He is
the chairman of Williams & Jensen, a tax and business lobby group in
Washington. His biography says he was named one of Washington's top lobbyists
by Washingtonian magazine and The Hill newspaper.
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Andrew Bremberg is a policy adviser and a member of the counsel on
nominations for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. A former policy
director for the Republican presidential campaign of Wisconsin Gov. Scott
Walker, Bremberg has also served as a chief of staff at the Office of Public
Health and Science, Department of Health and Human Services, according to his
LinkedIn profile.
TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT
Shirley Ybarra previously served as Virginia's transportation secretary from
1998 to 2002, and was a senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of
Transportation under the George H.W. Bush administration. She is best known
for her advocacy of "public-private partnerships" to raise money for major
transportation infrastructure projects and she is a proponent of toll roads.
COMMERCE DEPARTMENT
Ray Washburne is a longtime Republican fundraiser and former finance chairman
for the Republican National Committee. Based in Dallas, Washburne runs a
boutique investment firm that owns shopping centers and a chain of Mexican
restaurants. Before backing Trump, Washburne was the finance chief for New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's presidential campaign.
INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL REGULATORY AGENCIES
Paul Atkins is an avowed opponent of regulating Wall Street and served as
Securities and Exchange commissioner from 2002 and 2008. During that period,
he backed lifting restrictions on leverage taken by investment banks, a move
that some blamed for exacerbating the financial crisis.
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Michael Korbey was a senior adviser to the Social Security Administration
under the tenure of President George W. Bush. He helped spearhead a public
campaign to rally support behind privatizing Social Security. Before that, he
worked for the lobbyist group United Seniors Association.
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
Williamson (Bill) Evers was an adviser to U.S. Secretary of Education
Margaret Spellings in 2007 under President George W. Bush. A fellow at the
Hoover institution, Evers is a strong critic of the standardized curriculum
known as "common core," which he has described as "undemocratic."
AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT
Michael Torrey is a top Washington agriculture lobbyist and founder of
Michael Torrey Associates. He served for one year as deputy chief of staff at
the Agriculture Department under the George W. Bush administration and as a
deputy assistant secretary of congressional relations at the department for a
year prior to that.
___
Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann, Jeff Horwitz and Michael Biesecker
contributed to this report.
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