Everything happens so fast after an election. That even goes for those who will have no official role in the incoming administration, like Melania Trump.

Faster than the hundreds of thousands of people who will soon be laid off because of tariffs could begin to regret their vote, Melania’s already preparing to set up the East Wing of the White House for her personal use again. The East Wing is, of course, the traditional office space of the First Lady and her staff.

This time around, she’s brought back an old friend for an even bigger role. John Rogers, an executive vice president at the predatory investment firm, was an advisor to Mrs. Trump in 2017 in ceremonial affairs and staffing. Now he’s moving up the ladder straight to right-hand man, it seems.

Business and finance writer Liz Hoffman had the inside story:

Scooplet: Goldman Sachs’s John Rogers will be helping Melania staff up the East Wing during the transition. He was an adviser to FLOTUS during the first term on personnel and ceremonial matters. Chairs the WH Historical Association, been consigliere to three Goldman CEOs.

— Liz Hoffman (@lizrhoffman) November 11, 2024

Goldman Sachs, one of the only investment firms that got money from George W. Bush’s bank bailout in 2008, had the good fortune of having all of the proprietary trades they oversaw with lending group AIG paid for by American taxpayers. We’ve never gotten a penny of it back, either.

Neither will we get any of the money back that we’ll now be paying the “consigliere to three Goldman CEOs” that Melania just hired.

Wait, make that four, apparently. In the comprehensive bio provided handily by his billionaire buddies at Goldman, it’s noted he’s been Chief of Staff to four CEOs of the firm. The reason you haven’t heard his name as much as Lloyd Blankfein and Hank Paulson and Jon Corzine is because it’s awkward to put “Goldman Sachs” and “Mr. Rogers” in a sentence together.

I’m not saying that John Rogers is an inherently bad guy just because he’s attached to Goldman Sachs. Even if they ARE one of the most notoriously unscrupulous financial firms in America, just look at this guy’s other qualifications:

• His dad owned a wholesale frozen food business, just like Tucker Carlson’s dad
• He was assistant to James Baker, the guy who advised us into the first Gulf War after mysteriously discovering we could exploit Iraq AND Kuwait at the same time
• Treasurer of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
• Once had dinner with Trump and the President of France

Who WOULDN’T want a guy with bona fides like that on board?

The question is, why is Melania gearing up the East Wing this early? Is she actually going to use it for more than just the room where she wraps Christmas presents now?

After all, Melania is not just a former and future First Lady anymore. She’s now an esteemed author as well. Her gripping tale of ugly clothes, naked pictures, and planes that don’t exist reached as far as [unintelligible mumbling] on the NYT bestseller list!

But right now, Melania’s living full time in New York with her son Barron, who presumably still isn’t getting any dates in college by living with his mom.

Does her setting up the East Wing a full two months before the inauguration mean that she’s actually going to move into the White House with her husband this time? It took her forever the last time around, and she was seen very rarely in the East Wing.

In Katie Rogers’ book American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden, the author notes that Melania only even visited her office in the East Wing twice as First Lady: Once when her aide Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff called for a meeting there, and once when she “was nearby and felt like surprising her staff.”

THAT sounds a lot more like the Melania we know than someone who’d get an office ready two months early, where some work might accidentally get done. Who knows? Maybe she’s taking her own advice and finally trying to Be Best.

Of course, the flip side could be that her aides transformed the office so much when she wasn’t using it that even Jill Biden didn’t have time in four years to get it back to the way it was. According to Rogers’ book, her aides installed IKEA shelving and used it for storage of all sorts of Trumpian things: First Lady–themed coins and keychains, bowls etched with the image of the White House, an array of dishes made of pewter, plush robes for guests at the Executive Residence, leather desk sets, salt-and-pepper shakers, crystal bookends, baby rattles, golf balls, and golf towels.

If John Rogers shows up with a caddy, it may be more of the same for Melania.