The demotion of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from short-lister for Donald Trump's running mate to long shot for any significant role in the Trump administration is one of the enduring mysteries of the Trump transition. Allies of Christie and Trump both insist that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law whose father was sent to jail by Christie, is not behind Christie's fall from grace, but they don't agree on the reason he was largely frozen out of the Trump presidential transition, Hunter Walker says at Yahoo News.
Christie loyalists say that the New Jersey governor did a professional job putting together a transition plan and that the Trump team was caught flat-footed because nobody around the president-elect expected him to actually win. "Trump has said he didn't want anything to do with the transition because he's superstitious," one Christie ally told Yahoo News. Team Christie adds that his demotion to honorary vice-chairman of the transition when Vice President-elected Mike Pence was named chairman is just a normal part of the shift from theoretical to practical, with one Christie ally pointing to Dick Cheney's takeover of the transition effort for George W. Bush in 2000.
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