WASHINGTON –
In staffing his incoming administration, President-elect Donald Trump has so far veered from the conventional to the confounding. But his choices all seem to have one thing in common: A bond with Trump himself.
From his chief of staff to those he’s tapped to lead the Justice Department, the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security, Trump is picking people who have been familiar faces at his campaign rallies, frequent visitors to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida or reliable defenders of him on TV.
It’s a sharp contrast from his first go-round in the White House. Trump, then a neophyte Republican politician, ended up with members on his team with whom he had no prior working relationship and no level of trust.