JOHN KELLY: “Chief of staff John Kelly’s search for a No. 2, which has dragged on for more than four months, shows no signs of wrapping up anytime soon.
The White House was widely expected to make a public announcement about the position early this year, with officials floating a senior administration lawyer, Jim Carroll, as a likely replacement for Kirstjen Nielsen, a close Kelly confidante who accompanied him from the Department of Homeland Security to the West Wing last summer before the president tapped her to become DHS secretary. But while Carroll has assumed some of the responsibilities of Nielsen’s old job, Kelly has been disappointed in his performance and has held back on officially bestowing the title, according to two administration officials.
Kelly’s struggle to replace his own team members is perhaps the clearest illustration of the problems he faces trying to keep President Donald Trump’s administration staffed as officials who joined in the first year leave… The deputy chief of staff position, along with the people who hold it, is obscure to most outside the government, but its occupant serves as the principal aide to the chief of staff — the presidential deputy’s deputy…
To date, the personnel changes Kelly has implemented have always relied more on firing than hiring, an area that has proved a perpetual struggle. With Nielsen’s help, he dismissed aides he considered disruptive or whose duties he thought superfluous, from chief strategist Steve Bannon to Omarosa Manigault, a former contestant on Trump’s reality show ‘The Apprentice’ who directed the Office of Public Liaison.
Given their close bond and her vast responsibilities, the subject of who would replace Nielsen — or whether anybody could do so, in Kelly’s eyes — has become a matter of major speculation inside the West Wing.”
-Eliana Johnson, “Kelly’s hunt for a deputy bogs down amid personnel issues,” Politico, Feb. 8, 2018 05:04am