goal to completely staff the White House (almost all positions there do not require Senate confirmation) and have at least 50 key positions confirmed prior to January 20th, 100 by April, and 500 by August 2033. The goal also was to fill most of the White House positions before the inauguration.
Other responsibilities of the transition team would be in organizing the White House offices, having leadership teams trained up on the functions of the more than 100 federal agencies, building a full policy platform for the new administration (planned executive actions, budget proposal, legislative proposals, and communication strategies), and developing a 100 to 200 day plan on how to execute policies laid out by President-elect Powers during the campaign.
There is little documentation available in the federal and presidential records that our Commission members examined. Most of our information of this period comes from media reporting and transition team announcements. It appears that the Powers Campaign dedicated only about a dozen personnel prior to the election to work on transition planning. Several media reports estimated only about 200 candidates were vetted with only about 25 receiving and completing initial ethics and security clearances. There was little planning regarding a number of the transition team responsibilities. So there was a slow start with no additional personnel appointed to the transition team until November 27th. This lack of planning would have an impact on the first 100 days of the Powers Administration.
On November 20th, the Trump Administration published about 200 regulations in the Federal Register concerning a wide-range of subjects, including environmental, safety, labor, federal procurements, military discipline, financial regulations, tax audit processing, to name a few. These so-called “midnight regulations” would go into effect just prior to January 20th, and would be designed to counter or complicate policies promoted by the President-elect Powers during his campaign. This is nothing new in presidential transitions, as President Paul Ryan’s administration had issued thousands of pages of new rules prior to the transition of President Eric Trump. The Powers transition efforts were caught “flat-footed” and surprised by this action and were slow to react, taking over a week during the Thanksgiving Holiday period to even decide what this was even about.
The Powers transition team tripled its staff literally overnight on November 27th. However, the transition team suffered from two major issues. First, the President-elect expressed no interest in transition issues, suggesting that Vice President-elect Billy Mitchell make any decisions. Powers departed Boston on what he called a Victory Tour on November 4th with large rallies each evening. Second, it appears that the former Powers Campaign headquarters in the Powers Tower was duplicating many of the functions and responsibilities of the transition team for the most senior level positions and the first hundred days planning, and even the headquarters in Boston had divisions and duplicative work. Stevens finally met with Vice President-elect Mitchell on Thanksgiving Day in Atlanta to discuss the transition issues.
On December 3rd at the Mitchell-owned golf course in Tampa, about 150 members of the Powers Campaign, transition team, and other parties met and hammered out an initial action plan for the transition, the draft governance structure, the names of the top 200 potential senior leaders and White House Staff, and their roles of the new Powers Administration. Early Monday morning, the President-elect was briefed on this, decided to drop and add about thirty names from the senior listing, and approved the governance structure.
On December 7th, Billy Mitchell and Stephen Stevens announced in a press conference the new governance structure for the Powers Administration and named many of the key leadership positions (see Volume 4 for details). A short ten minute video from the President-elect proceeded Mitchell’s remarks, stating that Powers had approved the governance structure and the unofficial nominations of his senior staff, which would be further explained by Mitchell and Stevens. Powers stated that he was departing from the Chief of Staff structure formulated by President Eisenhower in favor of a lean, mean, business structure with the Vice President acting as the Chief Operating Officer with each Cabinet-level department head reporting to Billy Mitchell. Powers mentioned he would have no more than a dozen policy implementation positions reporting to a Chief Policy Officer who reported to him; and that they would be responsible for coordinating the implementation of his polices, such as on immigration, law and control, and veterans.
The Vice President-elect then proceeded to show how each of the Cabinet secretaries would be reporting directly to himself, and independent agencies, boards, and commissions would likely be reporting to the appropriate Cabinet secretary or thru several Coordinator positions who also reported to Mitchell. Mitchell explained that the transition effort had recommended and the President-elect had approved about 100 members of the White House Staff not needing confirmation from the Senate.
Before naming members of the senior team, Mitchell explained that he would become the chief of the transition team as Stephen Stevens would be nominated as Attorney General and begin preparing policy implementation plans in his areas of responsibility. Mitchell briefly explained the purpose of the transition efforts. Mitchell then announced major nominations for Cabinet-level positions (these being unofficial, until after the inauguration and a Senate confirmation vote), and then Mitchell and Stevens spend an hour answering questions from the press. The Cabinet-level nominees were:
Secretary of State – Steve Edward
Secretary of the Treasury – Steven Brown
Secretary of Defense – Steve Edward
Attorney General – Stephen Stevens
Secretary of the Interior – Stephen Smith
Secretary of Agriculture – Steve Jones
Secretary of Commerce – the daughter of the President
Secretary of Labor – will not be filled, department will report to daughter of the President
Secretary of Health and Human Services – Steve Johnson
Secretary of Education – will not be filled, department will report to Steve Johnson
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development – son-in-law of the President, also a Stephen
Secretary of Transportation – Stephen Walters
Secretary of Energy – Steve Thomas
Secretary of Veterans Affairs – Stephen Jackson
Secretary of Homeland Security – Steve Edward
United States Trade Representative – son of the President, also a Steven
Director of the Office of Management and Budget – daughter-in-law of the President
Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy – will not be filled, but reporting to Steve Johnson
Chair of the Federal Reserve – will appoint a new Chair in February 2034.
Director of National Intelligence – Stephen Hamilton
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency – will not be filled, department will report to Steve Thomas
Ambassador to the United Nations – to be determined
Chief of Staff – will not be filled, but the position of the Chief Policy Officer would be a Cabinet officer – Stephen Schmidt
Questions at the press conference and in subsequent media interviews centered mainly on two issues – the appointment by the President-elect of four of his children and their spouses plus Steve Edward being triple-hatted as the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Homeland Security. Many people were interviewed and asked if that was even legal, but no one could find anything that said this was not. There was even a question of why so many Cabinet officers, including the Powers son and son-in-law, with the first name Stephen, Steve, or Steven. Public vetting occurred in subsequent news cycles, and several questions were raised about certain nominees.
Over the next several days, announcements came out from the transition team naming members of the White House Staff and several dozen deputies to Cabinet secretaries, the later would be requiring confirmation by the Senate. Transition team members began to coordinate and prepare no
minees for their hearings and working with the Senate committee staff on scheduling them as soon as possible. However, President Trump requested Congress to address a few key issues (emergency funding for the eastern coastal seawalls and African Bee Virus) in their lame-duck session, so the majority of confirmation hearings did not begin until January.
On December 15th, a London Times reporter discovered that a Melody Anderson, the maiden name of Melody Powers, had purchased the top ten floors of a luxury apartment three blocks from the American Embassy. After several days of denials by Powers’ press secretary, the news was confirmed with the President-elect asking for privacy on this matter. A spokeswoman for Mrs. Powers finally confirmed to the press on December 18th that she had no desire to serve as First Lady and be in the public spotlight, and that she intended to move to London prior to the inauguration. It was decided in the coming month that the Vice President’s wife, Tracy Mitchell, would fill the role normally done by the First Lady.
Since the election, the media had asked members and surrogates of the Powers Campaign how the President-elect intended to disengage from the operations of the TAP Infrastructure Corporation. The President-elect when asked after rallies would just respond “we are looking at that.” On January 5th, a Powers spokesperson announced that Powers