As director of the Iowa Dept of Transportation, Trombino launched a pilot project of putting driver licenses on mobile devices. In 2012, he denied driver licenses to Iowa residents who were part of the DACA program. A few weeks later, the state backtracked and rescinded his decision. In 2015, Trombino made an admission that might seem startling from a DOT director: He said his state needs fewer roads. “. . . My personal belief is that the entire system is unneeded."   read more

Christopher Caldwell, a seventh-generation Arkansan, was nominated by President Trump on September 12, 2017, to head the Delta Regional Authority (DRA), an agency that Trump, in his March budget, indicated he would eliminate. Caldwell worked on a number of GOP political campaigns, including Mike Huckabee’s presidential bid in 2007-2008, before becoming campaign director for Sen. John Boozman, who recommended Caldwell for the $172,100-a-year job of DRA co-chair.   read more

To improve the public’s access to independent and authoritative information about the Federal Government, Oversight.gov was created by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency to consolidate in one place all public reports from Federal Inspectors General. The role of federal IGs is to prevent and detect waste, fraud, and abuse relating to their agency’s programs and operations, and to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in agency operations.   read more

Rosenberg resigned as acting director of the DEA on Sept. 26, 2017, apparently because he believes President Trump has little respect for the law. In a memo to DEA employees, Rosenberg said Trump had “condoned police misconduct” when he told police officers in July to halt the practice of protecting the heads of suspects when guiding them into the back seat of a police car. Rosenberg advised his people to ignore Trump's advice, citing "an obligation to speak out when something is wrong."   read more

In 2005, McMullen founded his own PR/ad firm that specializes in representing GOP candidates and issues. He has served as an advisor in several national presidential campaigns, including those of John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson. McMullen hopped on the Trump train early in 2015 as one of five advisors to Trump’s exploratory committee, which became the Trump for President Campaign. He later joined the Trump transition team and became vice chair of Trump's Inaugural Committee.   read more

Huntsman’s biggest political controversy came in 2009 when he publicly backed civil unions for gay couples, even though he'd backed a state amendment passed in 2004 that prohibited same-sex marriage. The decision angered conservatives. President Obama appointed Huntsman to be ambassador to China in 2009. His tenure ended in 2011, shortly after Huntsman caused a controversy in China by being present in an area of a planned protest. Huntsman said he was coincidentally in the area shopping.   read more

Winberg joined the Consol Energy utility firm in 2002 and worked his way up to a VP post. He was also Consol’s representative on the board of FutureGen Industrial Alliance. The group of electricity generators, coal companies and manufacturers was supposed to build the first coal power plant to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground instead of emitting it in the air. No such commercial plants were built, with Winberg blaming this on poor government support.   read more

After six years working for Public Storage, Kohorst, in 1990, became CEO of Tiger Shark Golf, a golf club maker, and of the Halloween costume firm Masquerade International, which Kohorst later sold to a company that marketed clothing for dogs. Kohorst has been a big donor to GOP candidates, having given $650,000 to the RNC alone between 2012 and 2016, and $194,000 to the Trump Victory PAC. After the election, Kohorst was made a member of Donald Trump’s Transition Finance Committee.   read more

Walker worked for 18 years for Consolidated Edison, New York City’s electrical supplier, and served on the utility’s Biological Chemical Weapons Response Team. He later dealt with the power emergencies caused by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and the widespread power blackout in August 2003. Walker co-founded the Global Smart Grid Federation, a 10-nation collaboration to modernize electric energy systems, and served on two DOE advisory committees.   read more

Masso was VP at Anteon Corp, which specialized in simulators and interrogator training. He was then senior VP for Navy and missile defense programs at SAIC Corp. He's a senior fellow at the conservative Potomac Institute, and has written for the right wing website Breitbart, attacking the deal over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Among his military awards, Masso is most proud of the commendation he received as a member of Navy Command Center 106 for actions during and after the 9/11 attacks.   read more

In a case of puting a fox in charge of a henhouse, President Trump has named a coal industry CEO with a record of safety violations to be his top mine safety enforcer. David Zatezalo enjoyed a long career as a mining industry executive, including years as a top official at Rhino Resources, which was repeatedly cited by safety officials for breaking the law. Though he touts his experience as a coal miner, Zatezalo never faced the prospect of a life working underground the way most miners do.   read more

In 2002, Kiko became a member of the Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board. In 2005, President George W. Bush appointed her to be FLRA general counsel, where she served until 2008. Her stint as general counsel coincided with a marked decline in employee morale at FLRA, which earned the title of the worst small agency to work for three years in a row. In 2016, she co-founded Future with Hope Women, a group for Catholic women older than forty.   read more

Melendez has served as a civilian in the departments of Defense and State in civil engineering and property management roles. In the late 2000s, he worked in the Dept of Energy’s Office of Engineering and Construction Management. He left to become an assistant chief of staff in the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and director of Installations and Environment in the National Capital Region. Melendez was in charge of the facilities at Quantico Marine Base during a period of rapid growth.   read more

Juster served as U.S. chair of the U.S.-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and was instrumental in an initiative between the U.S. and India that led to a civil nuclear agreement between the nations. This helped make Juster perhaps more qualified for his post than most non-State Department ambassadorial appointees. He joined Trump's economic team early in the administration but fell out of favor in the spring of 2017 in the internecine battles in the executive branch.   read more

Grenell was named in 2001 to be spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the UN, becoming the longest-serving person at the job. He next joined industry, first as a VP for DaVita Healthcare, then forming his own firm, Capitol Media Partners. In 2012, Grenell served as Mitt Romney’s foreign affairs spokesman, but was chased off the campaign by anti-gay attacks from the right. Since then, he has contributed to Fox News and other conservative outlets, where he often sniped at the Obama administration.   read more

Fitzpatrick served as political counselor at the embassy in Madrid in 2003 and returned to the U.S. in 2007 as director of the Office of Southern European Affairs. She was named deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in 2010 and in 2012 became chief of staff in the Office of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights. In 2014, she was appointed principal deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.   read more