Indian-American Raj Shah has been named deputy assistant to the President and deputy communication director and research director in the incoming Donald Trump administration.
Mr. Shah has been leading the Opposition research for the Republican National Committee (RNC) for the last two years and worked closely with Reince Preiubs, the incoming White House Chief of Staff. Research provided by his team formed the basis of several Republican campaign moves through the last year.
On the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in July 2016, through seven hours of speeches, leaders did not mention Islamist terrorism even once. Soon after the day ended, Mr. Trump, then Republican presidential candidate, made it a big issue. The Trump campaign was receiving such inputs from the monitoring team , based only miles away from the DNC venue, led by the 30-year-old Shah.
“They (Democrats) present a varnished image of themselves. Our job is to chip that off a bit,” Mr. Shah had said, during the campaign.