Ms. Walters, the White House spokeswoman, denied any substantial delay in staffing the government, saying
that “there is no holdup.” But she added that the administration was now screening a large pool of prospective nominees — a senior White House official put the number at about 130 — whom it would soon name for crucial positions.
“The White House personnel system has really put an emphasis on loyalty to Trump, and they have ruled out anyone who said anything bad about him.”
Steven T. Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, identified potential nominees for senior posts early
on, including Jim Donovan, a Goldman Sachs executive, whom he wants to be his deputy.
“He is really missing three to four levels of his leadership team,” said Michèle Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy under Mr. Obama, who said she removed herself from consideration to be Mr. Mattis’s deputy
because she did not agree with the new administration’s values and policy direction.
“The approach that the president took as a businessman
and a candidate is simply not scalable to the challenge of filling out the rest of the government leadership,” said Max Stier, the president of the Center for Presidential Transition.
“They can think of this lack of appointments as being a lean government,
but this isn’t like running a small business,” said Terry Sullivan, the executive director of the White House Transition Project, a nonpartisan organization that tracks the pace of appointments.