Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Tuesday that former National Security Council Director Christopher Painter will lead the department’s cyber security efforts. During a speech about Internet freedoms at George Washington University, Clinton said Painter will head the department’s Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues. State’s 2010 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review established a coordinator for cyber issues to “lead State’s engagement on cybersecurity and other cyber issues.” Painter’s duties will include protecting “the confidentiality of communications between and among governments.” Clinton said the office will enhance current cybersecurity efforts and promote cooperation across the department and governmentwide. She added that the administration will “complete…
Browsing: Hillary Clinton
Yesterday, Secretary Hillary Clinton held a town hall meeting with State Department employees. One human resources intern, Chris Dilworth, had a very pointed question for her: Will you ban private security contractors? Clinton, after noting that private security contracts are a concern and the contract with the controversial Blackwater Worldwide will be terminated, had this to say: I certainly am of the mind that we should, insofar as possible, diminish our reliance on private security contractors. Whether we can go all the way to banning, under current circumstances, seems unlikely, but we ought to be engaged in a very careful review…
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was greeted like a rock star today when she made her first appearance at the department’s D.C. headquarters. Clinton arrived this morning to thunderous applause outside the C Street entrance and, once inside, waded through a camera-toting crowd numbering well into the hundreds, taking time to shake hands with employees eager to get their first look at the new boss.  The applause didn’t die down for more than three minutes, at which point the brief lull gave way to another round of hoots and hollars. “We love you Madam Secretary!” one female employee shouted. “Thank you,” a…
The Senate just voted to confirm Hillary Clinton as the secretary of state. The final vote was 94-to-2: Only Sens. David Vitter, R-La., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C., voted ‘nay.’ But the Senate Judiciary committee is postponing its vote on Eric Holder’s nomination as attorney general. The Republicans on the committee apparently asked for the delay. Holder has proved controversial because of decisions he made as a deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration.
President Barack Obama’s Cabinet now has eight official members. The Senate voted by voice vote just before 4 p.m. today to confirm the following seven nominees: Steven Chu for Energy, Arne Duncan for Education, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Peter Orszag for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Ken Salazar for Interior, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs and Tom Vilsak for Agriculture. His Cabinet already included Robert Gates, whom Obama asked to stay on as Defense secretary. But things aren’t moving so quickly for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s secretary of state nomination. After her smooth hearing before the Senate…
img.cabinetpic { float: left; border: 1px inset #aaaaaa; padding: 0; margin-top: 1em } div.cabinetdata { margin: 0 0 2em 200px; padding: 0; } div.cabinetdata h3 { margin: 0; padding: 0; text-indent: 0; } We’re camped out on Capitol Hill all week covering the transition hearings — and we thought you’d like a central place to follow our confirmation coverage. We’ll update this list as the week goes on. The full list is after the jump, and it’s sorted alphabetically by agency.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning approved Hillary Clinton’s nomination to be Secretary of State on a 16 to 1 vote. Clinton must now face a vote before the entire Senate, but she enjoys strong support among her former colleagues and her confirmation is expected.
I just got off a conference call with Sen. Robert Casey, D-Penn., about his meeting today with Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton. Casey, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that will consider Clinton’s nomination Jan. 13, said he is very pleased with the direction Clinton wants to take State and expects she’ll be easily confirmed. Most of today’s meeting dealt with State’s management, budget and personnel issues, Casey said, which will be among Clinton’s primary concerns. And one of Clinton’s first actions at State will be to elevate management issues to the deputy secretary level.…
Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving weekend! (Back to reality, now.) A quick heads-up: The president-elect will hold his fourth news conference in a week at 10:40 this morning. He’ll announce his national security team, which is expected to include Sen. Hillary Clinton at State and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano at the Homeland Security Department. Both have received strong praise from experts and colleagues — and their management styles are profiled in this week’s Federal Times. We’ll have a full rundown of Obama’s national security picks after the press conference.
An obscure provision in the U.S. Constitution poses a potential roadblock on Sen. Hillary Clinton’s path to becoming Secretary of State. It turns out that the Constitution (specifically Article I, Section 6) prohibits a lawmaker from taking any goverment job for which the salary was raised during the lawmaker’s elected term. As the Washington Post and numerous bloggers have noted, this would effectively preclude Clinton from taking the State Department gig. Salaries for Cabinet secretaries have been increased twice since Clinton started her second term as the junior New York senator in January 2007: to $191,300 in January 2008 and…