This post has been updated.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence will take over President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, according to a press release from the transition team published Friday.
Pence was lauded by establishment Republicans when Trump announced that he would be his vice presidential pick in July. Sources told the New York Times, who first reported the switch, that Pence’s knowledge of Washington, D.C., was an asset for the role, which requires assembling a massive presidential administration in a matter of weeks.
Christie–as well as Rudy Giuliani, Gen. Michael Flynn, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Newt Gingrich, and Dr. Ben Carson, all campaign advisors to Trump–will serve as transition vice chairs.
Christie has been plagued by his former allies’ involvement in a 2013 plot to punish a political rival by closing access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, causing days of gridlock in the town of Fort Lee.
Just last week, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff and a former senior official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey were found guilty on seven counts of conspiracy and wire fraud alleged against them for their roles in orchestrating the lane closures. Christie maintains that he had no involvement in or prior knowledge of the plot.
Though Trump promised on the campaign trail to “drain the swamp” in D.C., his transition team is full of Capitol Hill lobbyists and Washington insiders.
The full transition team, including its executive committee, can be found here.
