Incoming First Lady Melania Trump has announced her first big hire for her new East Wing office in the White House, appointing longtime aide Hayley Harrison to be her chief of staff.
In a statement, Trump’s office said Harrison “has maintained an integral role and exceptional leadership on the First Lady’s team over the past seven years.”
“She has a strong understanding of White House operations, and as Chief of Staff, Mrs. Harrison will oversee and manage the East Wing’s team while strategically liaising with other parts of government,” the office added.
Trump is reportedly not planning on living full-time in Washington, D.C. during her second stint in the White House, but she’s set to still have a platform and highlight issues important to her, CNN noted.
Compared to her predecessors, Trump had a small East Wing team during her first term as first lady with about a dozen members of staff.
In a recent Fox News appearance, she said she’s “not anxious because this time is different. I have much more experience and much more knowledge.”
“I was in the White House before. When you go in, you know exactly what to expect,” she added.
“You know what kind of people to get – that they are on your team, that they have the same vision as me and to serve me because they serve the country,” Trump said.
Last year, ABC News reported that Harrison was named in the indictment against President-elect Donald Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Harrison was known as Trump Aide 1 in the case and she texted another staffer about moving the files out of the Mar-a-Lago business center to create space for the staff.
“There is still a little room in the shower where his other stuff is,” Harrison is alleged to have written to another aide.
Special Counsel Jack Smith looks set to close down the investigation before the president-elect is inaugurated.
The former first lady’s previous chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, backed Vice President Kamala Harris for president and spoke at the Democratic National Convention this summer.
“I never thought I’d be speaking at a Democratic convention,” Grisham said in a statement back in August. “But, after seeing firsthand who Donald Trump really is, and the threat he poses to our country, I feel very strongly about speaking out.”
During her remarks to the convention, Grisham said the president-elect “mocks” his own voters, referring to them as “basement dwellers.”
He has “no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth,” she argued at the time.
“I love my country more than my party,” the former White House press secretary said. “Kamala Harris tells the truth. She respects the American people and she has my vote.”
