Kiwi Chris Liddell's key role prising Donald Trump from White House revealed

Inside man: Chris Liddell (right) as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos meet President Donald Trump in 2017. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealander Chris Liddell copped flak for his decision to stay in a senior Trump administration role following the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riots.

National reversed its position on supporting Liddell for the OECD's top job.

Then-leader Judith Collins was scathing in her assessment of Liddell, according to a Herald report at the time.

"The rioting that took place in the US Capitol was a disgraceful attack on democracy that has rightly tarnished those who incited and enabled the violence," Collins said.

"Mr Liddell's ties to the Trump Administration cannot be overlooked here, making it difficult to see how he would be suitable to uphold the OECD's strong commitment to democracy."

But The Peaceful Transition of Power, a new book by David Marchick, dean of American University’s Kogod School of Business, sheds a new, much more positive light on Liddell’s role - based on interviews with senior figures and his own experience as the director of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition at the time.

"On the day of the Capitol insurrection, January 6, 2021, Chris Liddell, then President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff, came within a hair's breadth of resigning," Marchick wrote.

The New Zealander - Trump deputy of staff for policy and the head of the team charged with managing a smooth White House transition - "had perhaps the worst job in Washington - planning the departure transition for a president who neither wanted to leave nor accepted the election results."

But while Liddell was being derided by some in his own country, the Biden team had come to trust the Kiwi was working earnestly toward a transition, according to Marchick's account.

There was a fear that the effort to prise Trump out of the White House would go off the rails if Liddell quit.

A bipartisan effort was mounted to convince the Kiwi to stay, with Josh Bolton, a former chief of staff for George W Bush, drafted in to lobby Liddell from the Republican side.

Marchick and Bolton swapped a series of text messages with the New Zealander.

"We got to talk Chris off the ledge," Marchick told Politico in an interview published over the weekend.

At the time, Liddell said the events at the US Capitol were "horrifying", but told the Herald he was staying on to fulfill his duty.

"The transition of power from one administration to another is essential for the continuous operation of the Federal Government and is therefore critical to the country," he said.

Chris Liddell was deputy chief of staff for former President Donald Trump. Photo / NZME

Politico goes as far as using the headline "Biden's inside man in Trump land" in an article published over the weekend highlighting Liddell's behind-the-scenes work on the transition.

Biden's transition team initially viewed Liddell skeptically when it first encouraged him some nine months before the election.

But former Democrat Senator Ted Kaufman, who lead the team, told Politico that although Liddell obviously wanted Trump to win, "Liddell also recognised that there was a responsibility to implement the law and to plan for the possibility that Trump lost."

Kaufman's team found it could effectively work with the New Zealander, using Marchick as a back channel - and keeping it on the down-low.

"No one knew we were working with Liddell — like half a dozen people — as a protection to him. It was very closely held," Kaufman said.

Former Carter Holt Harvey CEO and Xero chairman Liddell had stints as chief financial officer at GM then Microsoft before joining the Trump White House.

More recently, he has invested in a number of local companies including Dunedin's Otis Oat Milk.