Certain Members Wiped From Trump's Transition Team

Tuesday brought a big shake-up for Donald Trump's transition team, but the president-elect took to Twitter to assure Americans that there's a "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!" USA Today reports by way of a team insider that Vice President-elect Mike Pence and transition executive director Rick Dearborn are cleaning house, wiping lobbyists from the team. "This is to ensure President-elect Trump's commitment to ban lobbyist involvement is being upheld at all levels of the transition," an unnamed aide tells Reuters. And the ball is moving: Necessary paperwork that had been awaiting Pence's signature since Friday was delivered to the White House Tuesday evening, though additional materials are required before agency-specific briefings can occur.

As for what was behind Mike Rogers' resignation Tuesday, many sources seem to be settling on his closeness with former transition team head Chris Christie (though Reuters floats an alternate theory about Rogers not going after Hillary Clinton hard enough during the Benghazi investigation). CNN's sources take it a step further and say Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner has been pushing to erase Christie associates from the team. The Washington Post sources echo this, calling the situation, in the words of the Post, "a troubling episode of political score-settling." It reports that in 2005 Christie, then a US attorney, prosecuted Kushner's father for tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions; he was handed a two-year sentence. (More President Trump stories.)