Donald Rumsfeld is not joining the Trump administration, but one of his most famous rules is: “You go to war with the Army you have—not the Army you might wish you have.” Or the secretary of the Army, as the case might be.
With the process of vetting and appointing, to say nothing of confirming, executive-branch officials well behind the optimal pace, incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said during a briefing on Thursday that “over 50” members of the Obama administration will temporarily remain in their posts to help smooth the transition to the Trump administration.
Spicer did not name all of the officials, nor did he indicate whether others had been asked and declined to stay on. A message to the Trump transition team, asking for a full list, has not been answered. Reuters reported Thursday afternoon that some individuals on a list, dated Tuesday, of appointees being asked to stay on had declined to do so, including the principal deputy director of national intelligence, an undersecretary of state, and an assistant secretary of state.
Here are the people Spicer mentioned:
- Robert Work, deputy secretary of defense (Work’s extension had actually already been reported.)
- Chuck Rosenberg, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency
- Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center
- Thomas Shannon, undersecretary of state for public affairs
- Susan Coppedge, a State Department ambassador-at-large focusing on human trafficking
- Brett McGurk, State Department special envoy for combating ISIS
- Kody Kinsley, assistant secretary of the treasury for management
- Adam Szubin, acting undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence