In Betsy DeVos for Education, Trump Taps Into Michigan Royalty; Carson Teed Up For HUD Head

The DeVos family, heirs to the Amway fortune, has long been a leading source of money for Republicans in Michigan and beyond. Just in the last three elections before 2016, members of the family gave nearly $9.5 million to party committees and candidates.

Mrs. DeVos had money of her own before she married Richard DeVos Jr., the Amway scion. Her father, Edgar Prince, built his own auto parts supplier, in Holland, Mich. Her brother, Erik Prince, founded Blackwater USA, a private security contractor whose guards were convicted of killing 14 civilians in Baghdad in 2007.

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With nominees chosen for C.I.A., national security adviser, secretary of education and ambassador to the United Nations, the next pick is expected to be the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That could be official as early as Friday.

Mr. Trump posted on Twitter that he was "seriously considering" Mr. Carson, a former rival in the Republican primaries, as housing secretary.

The department is no small corner of the government. Its programs fund public housing, subsidize rent for the poor, promote homeownership and work to revitalize struggling cities. And housing policy has been in a deep freeze since the Great Recession, when the nominally independent mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed and fell under federal control.

For nearly a decade, the mortgage industry has basically been government run, with much of its profits going right into the Treasury. Mr. Carson would have a big role in figuring out how to move forward.

Writing in the conservative Washington Times last year, Mr. Carson let it be known that he is no fan of government intervention in the housing market, specifically to force racial integration.''