Top Donald Trump campaign advisers who have taken charge of the president-elect’s transition team are casting aside much of the work on Cabinet picks that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his aides put in place over several months — and leaving behind a far more chaotic operation dominated by Trump loyalists. 
 
 Trump aides have nixed at least one Christie-backed person being considered for a Cabinet position in the aftermath of last Friday’s shakeup, a person closely tracking the transition told POLITICO. 
 
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 The transition team has yet to publicly release a code of ethics for itself or for nominees. And an aide to a person being considered for a top Cabinet position said the person had not yet been asked to complete a detailed questionnaire to suss out red flags. 
 
 Trump was slated to meet Tuesday with Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who now leads the team, to review names in hopes of announcing nominees for key Cabinet posts in the coming weeks. 
 
 "Obviously, Inauguration Day is not getting further away," transition spokesman Jason Miller told reporters waiting in Trump Tower Monday night. "And people need to get going. This is an absolute top priority understood by the president-elect and the vice president-elect.” 
 
 By comparison, President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team was deep into the vetting process by early November 2008 — not just meeting with prospective nominees but also compiling fat dossiers on them, according to emails made public through WikiLeaks. The Obama team also released a code of ethics for transition team members just a few days after the election to limit the influence of special interests. The Trump transition team, meanwhile, is full of lobbyists and has not released such a code. 
 
 “It’s a lot of new people coming in the door. I’m sure their heads are spinning, with security clearances and background checks,” said one transition team source. “They’re going from the footloose and fancy-free world of the campaign into the process of setting up a government. It’s a little different.” 
 
 The demotion of Christie and his top aides — Rich Bagger, Christie’s former chief of staff, and William Palatucci, a former Christie law partner and the transition’s general counsel — sent shock waves through the team’s ranks. 
 
 Bagger and Palatucci worked behind the scenes for months to create a methodical operation that was less drama-filled than the New York-based campaign shop. They played a central role in hiring transition staff, developing an infrastructure, setting up policy- and agency-focused teams and culling shortlists for top administration jobs. 
 
 The shakeup “definitely caused some confusion,” said one person on Trump’s transition team. “There’s been a lot of dust that’s been kicked up.” 
 
 Among those departing is former House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, who said Tuesday that the group’s work “will provide a strong foundation for the new transition team leadership as they move into the post-election phase, which naturally is incorporating the campaign team in New York who drove President-elect Trump to an incredible victory last Tuesday.” 
 
 At one point, members of the transition team even talked with good-government types — some of them Democrats, such as former Obama administration ethics czar Norm Eisen — to think through a code of ethics for the team. “I and others appealed to both sides in this election to put in these tough rules, starting in the transition, because that is where the tone is set,” he said. 
 
 The transition team has not yet made public its internal code of conduct, nor did it respond to a request for comment about it. 
 
 Nonetheless, Trump’s closest aides are meeting with prospective candidates in hopes of announcing nominees for key Cabinet posts in the coming weeks, sources told POLITICO. 
 
 Going forward, sources familiar with the team said they expect the operation to have a more top-down structure, with the president-elect’s closest advisers, such as Pence, Sen. Jeff Sessions, newly named chief of staff Reince Priebus, political strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner bulldozing much of the former transition leaders’ existing work and making Cabinet decisions on their own, in consultation with Trump. 
 
 Trump’s aides are focused on recruiting allies and loyalists who they have long hoped to install in top Cabinet posts, such as Sessions, or as Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, a Trump donor and Goldman Sachs veteran. 
 
 One person who has talked to transition officials compared their approach to that of Dick Cheney, who ran George W. Bush’s transition team. 
 
 “Cheney had his own list in his head, and he appointed the people he wanted,” the person said, adding that there are factions within the Trump transition — including Sessions loyalists, Heritage Foundation wonks, Trump’s campaign staff and conservative activists who admire Pence — that are each pushing their preferred candidates. 
 
 The transition team is also working to develop cohesive policies aimed at vetting nominees and protecting against conflicts of interest. Trump’s transition website, greatagain.gov, says candidates for jobs in his administration will be subjected to a full FBI background check and must complete a “Personal Data Statement.” 
 
 The statement includes questions about “possible conflicts of interest deriving from your sources of income; all aspects of your personal and professional life, including organizations to which you belong or once belonged; speeches you may have given and books, articles and editorials you may have written; legal, administrative and regulatory proceedings to which you may have been a party,” according to the website, which urges candidates to disclose “anything that might embarrass the President or you if he should choose you for a position in his administration.” 
 
 If the transition team follows through on that plan, it would subject Cabinet nominees and top White House staff to a greater level of scrutiny than Trump himself received. He was the first presidential candidate in modern history to refuse to release his tax returns, leaving Americans in the dark about his own possible conflicts on financial matters and dealing with foreign governments. 
 
 Past transition teams have generally subjected Cabinet nominees and other top administration officials to a rigorous in-house screening before announcing their nominations — and before nominees face questions from the White House Office of Government Ethics, the Office of Personnel Management and key Senate committees. 
 
 Obama infamously asked Cabinet candidates to complete a seven-page form with 63 separate requests for information. A WikiLeaks email from Nov. 2, 2008 shows the extensive vetting of James Steinberg, which involved a total of nine lawyers and a deep dive into his past. Steinberg later served as deputy secretary of state. 
 
 So far, the Trump transition team does not seem particularly concerned, for instance, about a transition team staffed heavily with lobbyists from energy, agriculture, transportation and banking. 
 
 “Frankly, one of the refreshing parts of it about the whole Trump style is that he does not care about political correctness. From a practical standpoint, I have heard lots of people say, ‘Why would we box ourselves out of the most knowledgeable policy people in the country?’” said one source close to the transition team. 
 
 Donald McGahn II, a partner at the firm Jones Day and Trump’s lawyer, is expected to play a central role in vetting nominees. So is Arthur Culvahouse Jr., a partner at the firm O’Melveny & Myers, who helped vet vice presidential candidates and, according to a source, has been helping the campaign organize its White House picks. 
 
 Culvahouse declined a request for an interview. None of the lawyers in the political law practice at Jones Day returned POLITICO’s calls. Culvahouse has faced backlash from colleagues at his firm for working with Trump, according to people familiar with the situation, with one person saying the decision was “amazingly controversial” within the firm. Many top partners at O’Melveny, including Tom Donilon, were vocal backers of Hillary Clinton. ||||| The Trump administration began cleaning house Thursday in the State Department by ousting four top officials. 
 
 Those exiting include Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy, Assistant Secretary of Administration, Joyce Barr; Gentry Smith, who heads the department's Office of Foreign Missions, and the Director of the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, Lydia Muniz, NBC News has confirmed. Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, Michele Bond, who was responsible for the agency's visa program, was also asked to leave. 
 
 A sign stand outside the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. Alex Wong / Getty Images 
 
 Two State Department officials confirmed to NBC News that Bond had intended to stay on into the next administration. Now her last day is Friday. 
 
 “I cannot adequately express how proud I am of our Bureau’s profound, positive impact on U.S. diplomacy,” she wrote in a letter to her staff. 
 
 Both the Trump Administration and the union representing the workers insisted that turnover at the top is typical when a new president takes over. But the officials' departure comes amid reports that other long-serving diplomats have chosen to quit rather than serve under President Trump. 
 
 They include Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Gregory Starr, the assistant secretary for diplomatic security who retired on Inauguration Day. 
 
 "While this appears to be a large turnover in a short period of time, a change of administration always brings personnel changes and there is nothing unusual about rotations or retirements in the Foreign Service," the American Foreign Service Association said in a statement. 
 
 Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the departures of longtime staffers is just business as usual. 
 
 "As is standard with every transition, the outgoing administration, in coordination with the incoming one, requested all politically appointed officers submit letters of resignation,” he said."These positions are political appointments, and require the President to nominate and the Senate to confirm them in these roles. They are not career appointments but of limited term." 
 
 Of the officers whose resignations were accepted, Toner said "some will continue in the Foreign Service in other positions, and others will retire by choice or because they have exceeded the time limits of their grade in service. " 
 
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 Embed Foreign Relations Committee Approves Rex Tillerson for Sec. of State in 11-10 Vote 1:49 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog 
 
 Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is expected to be confirmed by the Senate next week. 
 
 But some former state department employees are worried those departing were given little notice and were not given the opportunity to work with their replacements. 
 
 Recently departed Assistant Secretary for International Organizations, Bathsheba Crocker, took to twitter today to voice her objections to the way her former colleagues were treated. 
 
 Tom Countryman, FSO, acting "T" at State, told to leave Dept tmrw. Was on plane to Rome for non pro mtg; ordered to turn around & fly back. — Bathsheba Crocker (@shebacrocker) January 26, 2017 
 
 Countryman has served as the acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security since October of 2016. 
 
 Career diplomat and former ambassador Laura Kennedy also expressed concern, saying in a tweet, "These are all professionals who would stay to help the new team settle in; instead these dedicated public servants have been sent packing." 
 
 These are all professionals who would stay to help the new team settle in;instead these dedicated public servants have been sent packing. https://t.co/seeRBkUu0Y — Laura Kennedy (@AmbKennedy_ret) January 26, 2017 
 
 Crocker and Laura Kennedy both continued to be actively critical of the Trump administration on twitter. 
 
 A career foreign service officer, Patrick Kennedy was tapped for his post in 2007 by President George W. Bush and continued to serve in that spot under President Obama. He was the department’s chief bean counter, tasked with overseeing the budget, finances, security and consular services. 
 
 Kennedy, who started working for the agency in 1973, was dragged out of obscurity after four Americans were killed in Benghazi, Libya. Dragged before a Congressional committee, Kennedy defended then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s response to the crisis and swore under oath there was no order to the U.S. military to “stand down” during the attack. 
 
 Kennedy came under scrutiny for discussions he had with the FBI over the classification level of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 
 
 Meanwhile, a changing of the guard was underway in other top federal agencies with high-level officials tendering their resignations and heading for the exits — taking years of experience with them. 
 
 NBC News has also learned that Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan has quit a post he has held just since October. 
 
 Kevin McAleenan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, broke the news to the ranks in a letter. 
 
 "On behalf of the men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Border Patrol, I want to thank Mark Morgan for his unwavering dedication to our border security mission, and recognize his life-long career in service to the nation," he wrote. 
 
 Earlier, the Trump administration broke with precedent and ordered all politically-appointed U.S. ambassadors to clear out by Inauguration Day rather than give them a grace period. ||||| 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. 
 
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 “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."