New York: Before Chris Christie was New Jersey governor, he was the US attorney for his state. It was in that capacity that he prosecuted and jailed a certain Charles Kushner for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions.
A plea agreement led to a two-year prison sentence.
Fast-forward 12 years and Kushner's son, Jared Kushner, husband of Ivanka Trump and son-in-law of US President-elect Donald Trump, is playing a pivotal role in the latter's transition to the presidency.
Much has been said about the purging of the team initially assembled by Trump with Christie at the helm. Christie, who previously bypassed his own presidential candidacy to support Trump, was ejected in favour of Vice-President-elect Mike Pence soon after Trump's victory and before the team had a chance to crystallise. He is now one of several vice-chairs in the transition team.
But that wasn't all. Talk of turmoil in the team saw power struggles burst to the surface on Tuesday, with the abrupt departure of former House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers, who had been tapped by Christie to lead national security planning.
Two people close to the transition, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described Rogers' departure as a firing, a move that came about because of friction between Christie and Kushner.
Kushner, 35, is believed to have been one of the leading voices who kept Christie off Trump's presidential ticket.
Kushner didn't respond to requests for comment. Some transition aides said that a Kushner grudge wasn't to blame for the purge of Christie allies. Instead, they said, the transition hadn't progressed as far or gotten the results that Trump wanted.
Trump wants his stamp on the make-up of all aspects of his administration and has expressed a desire to weed out lobbyists from the leadership teams, the aides said. Vice President-elect Mike Pence is the best person to shape that transition effort, with the President-elect's input, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said.
"Of course the President-elect is going to want his Vice-President-elect helping to build what the administration is going to look like and the only person on the planet other than President-elect who knows what that is is the Vice-President-elect," Miller said.
Two Christie loyalists on the transition team were also demoted: Rich Bagger, who had served as chief of staff in Christie's gubernatorial office and was the transition's top staff manager; and Bill Palatucci, a former Christie law partner who had been serving as the transition's general counsel.
The turmoil has delayed transition work. The Obama administration has received Pence's signature on a memorandum of understanding that provides a framework, outlined by federal statute, for providing access to personnel, documents and other resources for the transition. The transition team now needs to provide names of those authorised to represent it, said White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine in an email.
"Once we have received those names and related materials, those individuals will be able to receive the briefing materials we have prepared and begin to communicate with their Obama administration agency counterparts as we continue our work to facilitate the transition," she said.
The shake-ups come just as Trump's lieutenants are about to send the first wave of "landing teams" into federal agencies to review projects and prepare to implement the priorities of the new administration. The emphasis will be on searching for ways to make changes - a mandate Trump gave all of the transition leaders.
Bloomberg, Fairfax Media