This is a set of web collections curated by Mark Graham using the Archive-IT service of the Internet Archive. They include web captures of the ISKME.org website as well as captures from sites hosted by IGC.org.These web captures are available to the general public.For more information about this collection please feel free to contact Mark via Send Mail ||||| Ready on Day One? 
 
 To Obama officials’ public and private complaints about the president-elect’s transition process, Team Trump retorts: ‘This is the best you can expect.’ 
 
 Outgoing Obama administration officials are muttering darkly of a Team Trump unstaffed and unprepared to take on major crises on Day One. But Trump transition officials tell The Daily Beast the controlled-chaos standard in any White House handover is on track—a mantra of “we got this” combined with a little bit of “enough already!” 
 
 “I actually think it’s gone pretty well and this is the best you can expect,” said Trump transition team member James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation. 
 
 He likened the process to a merger and acquisition—merging Trump’s campaign staff with those who will set policy and acquiring the White House from the Obama administration. 
 
 “If anybody expects this to be a frictionless process, they’re kind of nuts,” he added Wednesday. 
 
 Obama officials complained privately and publicly that they hadn’t had much time to do a handoff because there was no one to hand off to, and some are getting eleventh-hour requests to stay on, but they’ve already made other plans. They warned that the uncertainty in staffing could complicate President-elect Donald Trump’s response to an early post-inauguration national -ecurity crisis, like a North Korea missile launch, perhaps to test Trump’s tweeted claim that North Korea won’t be able to develop nuclear launch capability under his watch. 
 
 The rancor reflects a certain degree of anguish and anxiety over the incoming Trump administration’s promised repudiation of many of President Barack Obama’s key policies, from health care to the Iran nuclear deal, and also the boisterous, competitive nature of the different factions of the incoming team. The would-be policymakers, who are the relative newcomers to the team, clash with campaign officials, who all get trumped by Trump family members who serve as his closest advisers. 
 
 The churn, which somewhat resembles an episode of The Apprentice, has left some high-profile would-be Trump candidates in the wind and some Obama administration officials—from a notoriously hands-on, detail-oriented White House—twitching in near panic. 
 
 “It took them more time than we expected for them to be ready to engage with us,” outgoing National Security Adviser Susan Rice told The New York Times of the incoming Trump national-security team. It took two weeks after an election the Trump team did not expect to win to replace New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s team with a new one. Now, Rice said, “we’re racing to make up lost time.” 
 
 Trump officials say they’ve got it all in hand, or will soon. 
 
 “I want to personally again thank Ambassador Rice and her entire team for their preparation: the transition materials… that they’ve provided to us, the initiation of various NSC reform measures that she has already undertaken, and the time that she and her team took to help guide us and to help us be as well prepared as we can be prior to Inauguration Day,” said incoming National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, sharing the stage with Rice on Jan. 10 at the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Passing the Baton event celebrating the peaceful transition of power in Washington, D.C. 
 
 The reform he’s referring to includes the shrinking of the NSC from a high of 400 or so staff to fewer than 200 today—a change enshrined in the latest defense authorization bill to keep the national-security staff from ever ballooning again. 
 
 “The NSC, particularly under this administration, though under Bush as well, has micromanaged decisions by Cabinet members as well as senior uniformed officers,” said a senior Hill staffer who worked on the legislation, speaking anonymously in order to discuss contentious debates. 
 
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 Previous Obama NSC staffers say Obama was so detail-oriented, and so distrustful of some of his Cabinet members, that he had his staff questioning the smallest details. 
 
 NSC spokesman Ned Price countered that the Obama NSC has already been whittled down to 180 people, with 90 percent of them detailed from other agencies rather than being political appointments. 
 
 Flynn has told Capitol Hill staff that he’ll keep his team similarly lean and let Trump’s Cabinet secretaries run their departments. That means there will be only 20 or so political appointees at most. 
 
 But Team Trump is becoming aware of the gaps and has asked some Obama appointees to stay on, according to former Department of Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem. “Three friends, at three different agencies…. got calls this week asking if they would consider staying on. They had long ago made other plans,” she tweeted, and later confirmed by email. 
 
 
 
 And Obama officials gripe the incoming Trump appointee roster keeps changing. 
 
 
 
 One official complained of briefing incoming NSC staff for sensitive jobs in counterterrorism and the cyberfront at the National Security Council, only to have them fired or forced to withdraw by Team Trump—Monica Crowley the most public recent example. 
 
 “We’ve briefed at least 10 people, but they’ve all gotten fired by the transition after we trained them,” said one administration official working at the White House. 
 
 NSC spokesman Price said they’d left approximately 300 memos for the incoming team, adding that “members of the departing NSC team will make themselves available for continued consultations following the transition.” 
 
 Another senior administration official at a large national-security agency said he was also instructing his staff to leave notes on their desks with their personal email addresses and phone numbers so that Team Trump could reach out to them for institutional knowledge, like who they’d contact to get the quickest or most reliable answer out of a database of international counterterrorism counterparts. 
 
 That was standard practice in previous handovers, according to former Obama transition official Derek Chollet, who said it is often the only way to let the incoming team know what happened at those ranks of empty desks at the NSC. 
 
 “It’s nothing to do with politics. It’s just to do with records management. When you leave the NSC, you have to have files empty, wipe your hard drive, which presents challenges for continuity, as you have to understand what came before,” said Chollet , who now works at the German Marshall Fund. 
 
 So in the handover from President George W. Bush to Obama, the incoming and outgoing teams improvised. 
 
 “We called people up all the time after transition,” Chollet said. “The Bush team was terrific in terms of being open, helpful, disclosing things, to make sure the baton did not get dropped. That’s what [Bush NSA Stephen] Hadley championed and that’s the posture of the Obama team.” 
 
 Chollet said he was aware that the new teams are already communicating, with daily conversations happening at the senior staff level. 
 
 One of the places transition talks have been going well is the CIA, according to a U.S. official briefed on Trump CIA director nominee Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS). 
 
 “I’ve heard that the agency and senior staff have been very welcoming and supportive of Congressman Pompeo,” confirmed former CIA and NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden on Wednesday. “He has indeed reached out to all former directors and I spent an hour or so with him. In that private meeting, he came across the same way he came across in his confirmation hearing: knowledgeable, confident, enthusiastic,” Hayden emailed to The Daily Beast. 
 
 That’s high and unexpected praise, considering Hayden strongly criticized how the president-elect compared the intelligence community to Nazis and implied CIA Director John Brennan leaked a controversial portfolio on alleged Russian attempts to gather compromising material on him. The CIA declined to comment. 
 
 Another Trump official said the staff churn the outgoing Obama officials complained of was planned. Small transition teams like the one that studied defense issues parachuted into the Pentagon in November and will be replaced by “beachhead” teams, which start work at 12:01 p.m. on Inauguration Day. 
 
 The initial team interviewed current staff and came up with an action plan to turn Trump’s campaign promises into reality. They also came up with potential names to fill political appointee posts but couldn’t share them with Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Ret. Marine Gen. James Mattis, because he hadn’t yet had his confirmation hearing. 
 
 Some of those names got to Mattis, however, especially Trump’s reported choice of businessmen Vincent Viola as secretary of the Army, and that caused friction, according to multiple officials involved in the Trump process. 
 
 Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary, rejected the story first reported by The Washington Post, in a tweet: “Great transition at DoD. Reports to contrary completely false and come from sources who do not have any knowledge of our transition efforts.” 
 
 Carafano, an Army veteran and former speechwriter for the Army chief of staff, said in any event, service secretaries are seldom the Pentagon chief’s choice but are dictated by the White House. 
 
 He predicted that after Friday, reporters would be busy covering a new government in overdrive. 
 
 “People will have something to write about other than tweets,” he said. “People will pay attention to what the government is actually doing.” ||||| Presidential Transition Trump set to take office without most of his Cabinet Republicans are on track to take longer to fill out his team than for any administration since George H.W. Bush in 1989. 
 
 When Bill Clinton was sworn into office 24 years ago, every single member of his Cabinet but one was confirmed by the Senate within two days. When Donald Trump is sworn in on Friday, he’ll be lucky to have half that many installed. 
 
 With Republicans in control of the White House and the Senate, it wasn’t supposed to be this difficult for Trump to get his team in place posthaste, especially since Democrats did away with the 60-vote requirement for Cabinet nominees. But all signs are pointing to a slog for Trump and the Senate GOP, even if Republicans believe eventually all of Trump's picks will be approved. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 “We were presented with the problem that the Trump administration was basically unprepared for presenting a Cabinet,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). “They compounded that problem by picking both billionaires with enormously complicated financial situations, and people who have enormous conflicts of interests.” 
 
 Trump made his Cabinet selections in rapid fire after the election, but has been hampered since by ethics complications for some of them, Democratic opposition and an unforgiving calendar. His Cabinet is now on track to take the longest to fill since George H.W. Bush’s in 1989, according to an analysis by POLITICO of the confirmation process of the last five presidents. 
 
 Trump will also likely face by far the most dissenting votes from the Senate minority of any new administration in history. 
 
 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are in negotiations about approving much of Trump’s national security team on Friday, potentially giving him a defense secretary, a CIA chief and homeland security head on Day One. A few of his less controversial nominees may also be approved soon after, including Elaine Chao as transportation secretary and Ben Carson as housing and urban development head. 
 
 But after that, it looks like a major traffic jam. And next week’s congressional retreat and a spate of hearings that were recently postponed could combine to slow the approval process for weeks or longer. What's more, on Tuesday evening Schumer came to the floor to denounce the GOP for limiting questioning of education secretary hopeful Betsy DeVos to five minutes per senator, predicting it could slow the entire confirmation process to a crawl. 
 
 "We feel very strongly there ought to be another hearing [for DeVos]," Schumer said. "This will affect how the rest of the nominees will go forward." 
 
 Several prominent confirmation hearings are scheduled for after Trump’s takes office, including for Rep. Tom Price to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Democrats can use parliamentary tactics to delay Cabinet confirmations for several days apiece, and any one individual senator can force McConnell to jump through procedural hoops and burn the Senate’s time before holding a confirmation vote. 
 
 “Their ultimate goal is to slow this thing down. And we can’t let them,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I don’t know what they’re going to do.” 
 
 While Cornyn and other GOP leaders are confident that Republicans will band together and approve Trump's entire Cabinet using their 52-seat majority, the ride looks rocky. 
 
 A Trump transition official said staff members were aggressively calling senators to make the case for Secretary of State designee Rex Tillerson, focusing on Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) "in particular." Democrats are hoping to hobble Price over stock trades he made while in Congress, labor secretary choice Andrew Puzder over domestic abuse allegations and treasury hopeful Steve Mnuchin over his bank's foreclosure practices. 
 
 The senior Trump transition official said all three were ready for a fight, and that rumors that any would drop out were not true. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Puzder and Price are the “most challenging” right now, but predicted they will eventually be confirmed. 
 
 Republicans spent Tuesday rallying around the embattled Price, a conservative House member whom the GOP desperately need to be confirmed to help the party repeal and replace Obamacare. Price is accused of trading stocks whose value was affected by legislation he worked on in Congress. 
 
 “Tom Price’s stock? No. If he’s done something insider, I’d love to hear it,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). “I have not heard anything that disqualifies him.” 
 
 Other confirmation hearings were delayed because the Cabinet picks had not reached agreements to resolve ethical conflicts stemming from their financial holdings. Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub said that’s an aftereffect of Trump not vetting his nominees ahead of time. 
 
 Democrats have used the slow-moving ethics process as justification to criticize some of Trump’s selections. Whitehouse said that just hours before DeVos was set for her confirmation hearing he received a thick stack of her papers, which he had little time to review before. DeVos’ hearing, along with that of billionaire Wilbur Ross’ hearing to be commerce secretary, were both postponed last week. 
 
 But Republicans say Democrats will pay politically if they further draw out the confirmation process. 
 
 “If Sen. Schumer tries to slow down, I think he will regret it,” said Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress. 
 
 In 1989, George H.W. Bush’s Cabinet had no confirmations on Inauguration Day, mainly because the transition was from another GOP administration so there was less pressure to move swiftly. That year, some Cabinet nominees were confirmed as late as March. 
 
 But Trump is not keeping on any of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet secretaries, and the transition between administrations looks sure to be hobbled in the early days by Senate’s infighting. A Trump transition official said his team is hoping to get as many as seven nominees confirmed by voice vote on Friday, but Republican and Democratic sources said there’s little chance of hitting that mark. Trump hasn't even made a choice for his agriculture secretary. 
 
 There were just seven confirmation hearings last week, limiting how many nominees can be confirmed soon. And several, like Jeff Sessions to be attorney general and Tillerson, have no chance of being approved later this week. Sessions’ committee vote won’t occur until after Trump is sworn in and Tillerson’s nomination is “controversial,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), which means a speedy vote should not be expected. 
 
 “I’m for moving as quickly as we can,” Cardin said. “But that one will take a floor debate.” 
 
 Though there are another seven confirmation hearings for Cabinet or Cabinet-level nominees this week, it would be stretch for them to be ready for floor action by Friday. But Republicans are trudging on, with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) scheduling a Feb. 2 committee hearing for Puzder a day after CNN reported that the labor secretary pick is having “second thoughts" about remaining in the running for the job. 
 
 “I think they all make it through,” said Tom Quinn, a Democratic lobbyist who has met with Trump since the election. But “some of the [nominees] will really get roughed up.” 
 
 If Democrats fight the GOP tooth and nail, it could be more than a month before Trump gets his 15 Cabinet secretaries and six cabinet-level slots filled—- and potentially a lot longer for him to begin installing deputy-level officials that often run the department while the secretary serves as the public face. 
 
 “I haven’t heard anyone say, ‘Let’s drag this out as long as possible,’” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Asked how long it could take to process Trump’s Cabinet, Durbin responded: “How long will it take to go through the financial papers of some of these billionaires? I can’t tell you.”
– Barack Obama may have exited the White House, but some of his administration staffers are unexpectedly sticking around. New White House press secretary Sean Spicer says 50 State Department and national security officials who served under Obama will stay at their posts temporarily, while Obama appointee Thomas A. Shannon Jr. has been named as acting secretary of State pending Rex Tillerson's confirmation, the New York Times reports. The goal is to ensure "continuity of government" as just 30 of 660 executive appointments have been filled, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Politico has reviewed the last five administrations and says the last time a Cabinet was filled this slowly (only 2 of 15 nominees have gotten the OK from congressional committees) was in 1989 under George HW Bush. Politico quotes one Democratic senator as saying Trump's choice to go with "billionaires with enormously complicated financial situations, and people who have enormous conflicts of interests" has hampered things. Republicans have instead accused Democrats of dragging out the confirmation process, while some transition officials have put the blame on Chris Christie, who headed Trump's transition team before he was fired in November. The Times, however, says it has viewed the transition plan created by Christie and details what it saw, including guidelines to complete Cabinet and ambassador appointments in December. Despite the delay, one transition official doesn't get all the fuss. The transition has "gone pretty well and this is the best you can expect," he tells the Daily Beast. "If anybody expects this to be a frictionless process, they're kind of nuts."