As for bad hires, word at the time was that POTUS and Pence had an arrangement where Pence would chose many of them. Anyone know if this is true?
Pence replaced Christie as head of the Trump transition team right after the election.
It is the transition team that picks most of the Administration appointees, especially in the case of Trump who could not be expected to know the the bureaucrat insiders that make up most appointments.
Pence was put in charge of the transition committee (replacing Christie), so that sounds right.