Vice President Kamala Harris’ transition team is quietly developing plans for who could staff her administration as she crisscrosses the country trying to win an election that’d actually let her put them to use. Harris herself is entirely focused on winning, according to two sources close to her and the transition team. But she’s been getting weekly updates from her team as they toil away out of view in a federally funded workspace, preparing for what could be if Harris wins in November.
“They’re working in secret, and everybody is focused on winning the election, which has left little opportunity for a lot of personal discussion about personnel,” said a third source close to the vice president.
Harris has assembled a purposely skeletal team. The team’s leaders are slowly hiring more people, multiple sources told NOTUS, as they prepare to potentially orchestrate the first transition from a sitting president to a sitting vice president since 1988. They’ve been looking for “researchers and lawyers” to be ready to begin their vetting efforts beyond their current limited capabilities should Harris win. And it’s all happening with a low profile and a smaller group of advisers than previous Democratic transitions.
One person close to the vice president said she has tried not to engage in discussions about senior staff for her possible White House. “She is purposefully, as she always does, holding her cards close on this,” they said. And the team is “being very cautious about getting too far ahead of the vice president and jinxing anything.”
The shroud of secrecy “is a good sign,” said Max Stier, the founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, who consults with presidential transition teams. “Preelection transition operations are supposed to not make any news. Really, their job is to prepare for the possibility of their candidate winning, and that’s incredibly important, but it’s not supposed to be a distraction from job No. 1 for the campaign, which is ultimately to win.”
The team is led by Yohannes Abraham, who was the executive director of the Biden-Harris transition team. Josh Hsu, one of Harris’ longest and most trusted aides and former counsel in her VP and Senate offices, plays a major role. Multiple people say he was personally installed by the vice president. Dana Remus, the former White House counsel, is a part of the crew. Harris’ former aide Rachel Palermo has also recently joined the shop. And Lorraine Voles, Harris’ chief of staff for her official office and a trusted confidant who has been in her office since the summer of 2021, is in consultation, three sources told NOTUS.
“There is no transition without a successful campaign, and that’s the top priority. At the same time, consistent with precedent and responsible best practice, the Harris-Walz Transition is laying the foundation to be ready,” said a transition spokesperson.
Even though the team is still in its early days after a late start relative to prior campaigns, Democrats are rushing in to suggest names for key roles — both recommendations for who should keep their current jobs and who should be brought in for vetting. An email obtained by NOTUS sent by the White House counsel’s office Tuesday warned White House aides not to engage with either candidate’s transition team on “any matters related to official duties,” per the Presidential Transition Act.
Personnel vetting is the most sensitive, as names float across parlor games for a variety of reasons, like people wanting their own names out in the conversation or others hoping to install someone they favor.
“In a traditional transition, there really are two things that you’re trying to do. It’s personnel and policy,” said Anne O’Leary, who was a senior adviser on Hillary Clinton’s transition team in 2016. Clinton herself was very superstitious about engaging with the transition team, O’Leary said, allowing them to operate relatively independently with her trust.
“In the beginning of October, you’re a month out, and you’re really wanting to make sure that you have the full vetting done, and you’re not contacting any candidates at this point. You’re doing everything behind the scenes, all of the vetting,” O’Leary said.
The personnel questions happen both inside and outside the team. For example, Harris’ economic adviser, Brian Deese, has advocated for the vice president to keep the headline-grabbing Federal Trade Commissioner Lina Khan in her position, should the vice president win, according to two sources familiar with the campaign. A third source says that the pair has a close relationship. Karen Dunn, the lawyer who co-ran Harris’ debate prep, has long eyed the White House general counsel position, according to multiple sources, after having been in contention after Remus stepped down in 2022. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s aides have reached out to express her interest in a potential position, said a person familiar with the effort. (A spokesperson for the governor said she “is not interested in a job in the federal government.” Asked about this reporting at a press conference on Thursday, Hochul said it was “categorically false” that her aides were reaching out and blamed “bad actors” who want her not to run for re-election.) And Jeff Zients, Joe Biden’s chief of staff who helped run his transition in 2020, is being floated to lead the Treasury Department, said two sources.
Other names that float around the ether include Wally Adeyemo for Treasury and Michèle Flournoy for Defense. Sen. Chris Coons has privately advocated himself for secretary of state (A spokesman said Coons is solely focused on electing Harris). And two sources say Harris likes Don Graves and Michael Reagan and might seek to elevate their roles in her administration. Current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s allies have pushed him for a foreign policy-focused role. (Buttigieg aides did not respond to a request for comment.)
But floats in October won’t necessarily turn to reality in January, regardless of who wins.
“I think people are just out there fishing for names and making assumptions. If you want to know the truth,” said a Democrat close to both the campaign and the transition. “I’ve heard my name, and I have no intention of going back into government.”
The Harris team is also trying to avoid pitfalls from recent transitions. After Biden won in 2020, Asian American and Pacific Islander groups were publicly livid about the lack of Asian American representation in Biden’s incoming administration before he changed course. Those groups have already begun engaging with Harris’ team on potential candidates.
“It is more discussions than it is formalities of commitments or ‘let’s talk about people,’” said Shekar Narasimhan, the founder of AAPI Victory Fund. “We’re doing all the work necessary to be ready when she wins. … We ain’t gonna wait. We’re not sitting around and waiting for you to act. We’re telling you how we want you to act and how much we’d like you to act and why that’s important.”
The group supports both U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su. Both have voiced their wish to stay in their current jobs, though Su was never officially confirmed.
The Congressional Black Caucus, which in the past has supported candidates for cabinet-level posts during transitions, is still considering its own suggestions for appointments.
Harris is not “measuring the drapes,” those close to her say, but is instead trying to create options should she win next month. And as with much of her campaign, she’s had to build out a transition team in a hurry.
Abraham wasn’t officially appointed until late August, just weeks after Harris replaced Biden atop the Democratic ticket. In 2020, Biden named Abraham to lead his team that April. Still, there are few people who know how to do the transition process well, even in Washington, D.C. And Abraham, who grew close to Harris during the last transition, is both well-liked and known to run a tight ship.
The undergirding concern among all the possible cabinets or would-be names for positions is the confirmation process and who will control the Senate. Harris aides and allies are worried about getting any new people through the confirmation process in the first place, should Republicans take the majority.
Those fears have led some congressional Democrats to suggest the transition team not request the resignation of all political appointees, particularly in hard-fought roles that need to be filled on Day 1. In 2020, the Biden-Harris transition signaled early on that they were focused on high-ranking roles that didn’t require confirmation and could be filled on the first day to ensure the continuation of government. And questions swirl now about how the vice president would approach Biden’s political appointees.
“The issue is that it continues the drumbeat of ‘what makes you different from Joe’ if you’re keeping the same staffers,” said a person close to the campaign.
People familiar with those conversations say the transition team is grappling with these questions in real time.
“Part of what we believe is that the more continuity she can achieve, the better for her, because the more people who continue on, the fewer people she has to get through the Senate confirmation process, the fewer people who have to learn the jobs, and the more she will actually get done,” said Stier, reflecting a common view among people closer to the vice president.
Democrats and transition experts also see the basics of moving power from a sitting president to a sitting vice president as a challenge unseen since George H.W. Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan.
“We haven’t had the same party transition since the ’80s, so there’s very few people who saw this before,” said a person familiar with the transition.
Then there’s the challenge that colors everything else: Donald Trump. The former president’s transition team has blown past many of the federal deadlines meant to ensure a peaceful and seamless transition of power.
“The fact that we don’t know exactly what the Trump team is doing is very intentional, and we shouldn’t assume that it means that they’re not going to effectuate exactly what they have been planning since January of 2021,” said O’Leary, who shared a building with the Trump team in 2016.
The Trump campaign did not respond for comment when asked.
“They don’t want their records to be part of the public record,” O’Leary added. “They don’t want to have to be able to be FOIA’d. They don’t want to have transparency.”
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Jasmine Wright is a reporter at NOTUS.