By WINTER CASEY
In the next few months it is expected that Philip Verveer will become the State Department's next U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, according to sources familiar with the matter. Verveer will be filling the shoes of David Gross, who held the title of coordinator since 2001. The position also comes with the title of "ambassador." Sources say the White House is currently doing a background check of Verveer and his nomination will also be subject to approval by the Senate in addition to the administration. Verveer is currently counsel at the firm Jenner & Block's litigation department [bio]. He is also a member of the firm's communications practice with a focus on regulatory and antitrust issues.
Verveer has nearly three decades advising clients on communication regulatory issues before Congress, the FCC, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Office of U.S. Trade Representative, Federal Trade Commission, the State Department, and the Committee on Foreign Investment. Verveer, who served in the military, also worked as a partner in the Washington office of Willkie Farr & Gallagher where he founded the firm's communications practice. He has also served as a trial attorney in the Justice Department's antitrust division, a supervisory attorney in the FTC's Bureau of Competition, and as the chief of the cable bureau at the FCC. He earned his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1969 and is married to Melanne Verveer, who was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief of staff when she was first lady. President Obama has tapped her to be his ambassador at large for global women's issues.
By KIRK VICTOR
(Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
President Obama's nomination of Christopher Hill to be ambassador to Iraq has prompted fierce criticism from a handful of senior Republican senators in what is likely a prelude to a bruising battle on the Senate floor. Critics including Sen. Sam Brownback charge that Hill, a career diplomat, misled Congress in testimony last year when he was handling the six-party talks dealing with North Korean nuclear disarmament.
Brownback charges that Hill failed to follow through on his promise to confront North Korea on its human rights record. The Kansas Republican, joined by four other GOP senators -- Christopher (Kit) Bond of Missouri, John Ensign of Nevada, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona -- recently urged the president to withdraw the nomination not only because of what they see as Hill's misleading testimony but also because of his inexperience in dealing with Iraq. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, last year's Republican presidential nominee, also opposes the nomination.
Obama and Senate Democratic leaders counter that as a seasoned diplomat, Hill is well-suited for this key post. Hill also has won a key endorsement from Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, who said that Hill had "demonstrated extraordinary diplomatic and managerial skills in dealing with an isolated and inscrutable North Korean regime." Lugar's panel is scheduled to hold a hearing on the nomination Wednesday.
Brownback adamantly disagrees with Lugar. Last year, the Kansan even held up President Bush's nominee to South Korea until Hill agreed to take steps to make North Korea's human rights record part of the negotiations. But the senator says that Hill went back on his word. In an interview with National Journal last week, Brownback discussed his determination to do everything he can to kill the nomination. Edited excerpts follow.
NJ: What do you intend to do when Christopher Hill's nomination to be ambassador to Iraq reaches the Senate floor?
Brownback: We are going to fight hard against Chris. I met with him [on March 18] in my office and he did not allay any of my concerns. When he was conducting six-party talks, I asked him to involve the special envoy for human rights. He didn't want to do it. So I held up an ambassadorial nominee to South Korea. The State Department really wanted that ambassadorial nominee.Finally [former Virginia GOP Senator] John Warner brokered a deal in the Armed Services Committee where Chris Hill was testifying and Warner had me ask questions. One of them was, "Will you invite the special envoy for human rights to the six-party talks?" He said yes, he would. That didn't happen. On his word of doing that, in front of open committee, I lifted my hold on the South Korea ambassador. So he misled me.
NJ: So he lied?
Brownback: He did not do what he said he would do. It was very direct, it was very clear. And it did not happen.
By GREGG SANGILLO
(Credit: Hassan Ammar/AFP/Getty Images)
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., announced on Wednesday that she was leaving her House seat to accept the Obama administration's nomination as undersecretary for arms control and international security at the State Department.
This could be an interesting choice for several reasons. The position was filled by an acting head, John Rood, from mid-2007 through the end of George W. Bush's term. Rood, who was a former NSC staffer and aide to Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., was never confirmed by the Senate; an undersecretary who has gone through the full confirmation process will bring more muscle to the position. And the nomination of a member of Congress would signal the Obama administration's commitment to pledges he made on the campaign trail to pursue nonproliferation.
It could also be a highly influential post in government. It was the launching pad for the controversial conservative John Bolton, who took the lead on arms control issues in the job and became an outspoken hawk on Iran and North Korea.
Tauscher has a reputation as someone with knowledge of the nuclear arsenal and nonproliferation issues, and the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons laboratory sits in her district. Tauscher pushed legislation to fund nuclear weapons dismantlement, and she's also led House opposition to funding controversial Energy Department research programs into smaller "bunker busting" nuclear weapons.
On general national security matters, she's somewhat hawkish, but has at times walked a tight rope. She voted for the 2002 resolution to wage war against Iraq. In May 2007, she voted for a failed amendment by Rob Andrews, D-N.J., that would have prevented Iraq and Afghanistan war funding to be expanded into any operation against Iran. But she switched sides and voted against a more sweeping amendment by Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio that stated no previous law authorized military action against Iran.
By AMY HARDER
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright praised President Obama for the executive order he signed today that lifts restrictions on federal funding for groups that provide abortion services around the world.
The prohibition, known as the "Mexico City Policy," restricts the U.S.'s ability to engage constructively with other countries, Albright said. Reversing it, she added, is "a very big deal because the big issues internationally have to do with the health of women and on, generally, the right of people to choose what they want to do, having information."
Albright sees this executive order as a promising sign that the Obama administration will work to improve the country's global relations: "In many developing countries there is huge population pressure, so it is another signal that [the U.S. is] rejoining the international community."
The policy has teetered along party lines since its inception in 1984 under Ronald Reagan. Bill Clinton rescinded the rule in 1993, only to have George W. Bush reinstate it in 2001.
Secretary Clinton's Global Sway
Albright, who became the first female secretary of State during the Clinton administration, also offered a few words of wisdom for the woman now at the helm of that same department. "First of all, being secretary of State of the United States is one of the most all-time great jobs representing this country," Albright said. "She is in a position to be a partner in terms of reformulating American foreign policy. That is going to be very important."
Continue reading Albright Backs Reversing 'Mexico City Policy,' Offers Clinton Advice.
President Obama joined Vice President Joe Biden and newly confirmed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department this afternoon to stress his commitment to reinvigorating America's diplomatic efforts and to introduce two new emissaries to deal with some of the most pressing foreign policy issues facing his administration -- the Middle East and the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell has been named Obama's special envoy to the Middle East. As President Clinton's special envoy to Northern Ireland in the 1990s, Mitchell played a central role in the negotiations that resulted in the Good Friday Agreement, an experience which he said today taught him that there is no such thing as a conflict that cannot be ended.
Obama's appointee as special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, helped broker the Dayton Peace Accords between warring factions in Bosnia in 1995 and also served as the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. from 1999-2001. Holbrooke said today that, while the U.S. understands that Pakistan is far more than the "turbulent" tribal region on its border with Afghanistan, the two countries are now so closely intertwined that they cannot be dealt with separately from one another.
Both appointees, as well as Obama and Clinton, stressed the difficulty of the challenges facing them, but pledged their best to achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East and a more effective campaign to root out terrorists and extremists along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.
Updated: The Washington Post has the transcript of remarks by Obama, Clinton, Mitchell and Holbrooke.
On his first morning as president, Barack Obama found time to address the still-unstable situation in Gaza, calling the leaders of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Egypt, according to a statement from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. In conversations with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, the president signaled that he would engage with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by supporting reconstruction efforts and working to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.
The move is notable for coming so early in Obama's term, something the White House statement is at pains to point out. His immediate predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, only turned their attention to the peace process further into their presidencies.
In an interview on ABC's "This Week" earlier this month, Obama declined to comment on Israel's invasion of Gaza, which had been prompted by Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel, but said he would take prompt action once in office. "What I am doing right now is putting together the team so that on January 20th, starting on day one, we have the best possible people who are going to be immediately engaged in the Middle East peace process as a whole," he said.
See the full statement after the jump:
Hotline's Amy Walter and John Mercurio talk about Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton's appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations committee on Tuesday, as well as her possible successor in Congress.
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During her confirmation hearing, currently ongoing, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she would use a mix of defense and diplomacy -- a mix she called "smart power" -- to boost the United States' standing as a world leader. But the emphasis would be on diplomacy and bridge-building whenever possible, she noted. "America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America," Clinton said. Under the smart power approach, she said, "diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy." Clinton, who lost the Democratic nomination to President-elect Obama, is expected to easily win confirmation.
By ALEXIS SIMENDINGER
Obama transition officials are making it clear to incoming Cabinet secretaries and agency heads that they'll be handed a slate of perhaps five or six pre-screened candidates for the top jobs in their departments and encouraged to interview and hire from among those candidates. If the secretaries want to reach outside those lists to make their own hires, they will be required to justify their picks to the president-elect's top advisers, some of whom are headed for the offices of the White House Counsel and White House personnel.
The West Wing's control over the top slots in each department is similar to the practices of Barack Obama's predecessors, Presidents Bush and Clinton, but with a twist. The secretaries are being told that the ethnic and racial makeup of the senior officials in their departments should reflect diversity to the extent possible. Apparently, the new White House will be keeping track, according to sources close to the transition.
Outside observers have said they're puzzled, however, that Hillary Rodham Clinton -- known for having female-dominated staffs while first lady, New York senator and presidential contender -- had by early this week tapped eight white men and one woman to help her at the State Department, if she's confirmed as secretary. Although Clinton supposedly cut a deal with Obama to be able to hire her own team, some observers are dubious. Two sources report there's already been some friction between Clinton and deputy-designate James Steinberg, suggesting that she accepted her deputy more than selected him.
By CONGRESSDAILY STAFF
The Senate cleared the way Wednesday for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., to become secretary of State in the Obama administration by agreeing to roll the position's salary back to 2007 levels.
The move was necessary because of a constitutional clause barring members of Congress from taking government jobs for which the pay was raised during their current term in office. The provision is designed to prevent lawmakers from personally benefiting from laws they have passed -- including those setting salaries for government jobs. The Senate voted last year to increase the salaries of Cabinet secretaries from $186,600 to $191,300.
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Atlantic Media Political Director Ronald Brownstein spoke with former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski for today's edition of "National Journal On Air." During the course of their conversation, Brzezinski touched on the incoming foreign policy team, controlling weapons of mass destruction and Obama's global popularity.
Related: Carter Official Jody Powell Rates Clinton Pick
NJ: President-elect Obama this week named the key members of his national security team: Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and General Jim Jones. What was your assessment of the team he pulled together?
Brzezinski: I think it's a very strong team in terms of individual capabilities and personal experience. Each one adds an important dimension to our ability to handle foreign affairs. But there is, I think, a potential problem, namely, because they're such strong individuals there could be some problems with coordination, especially since in some respects both the new secretary of State and the retained secretary of Defense have had different perspectives in foreign policy issues than the president-elect. So a great deal depends on the degree to which the president, working through the national security adviser, General Jones, can impose a sense of direction, can impose central strategic control over the shaping of foreign policy.
NJ: You know, one thing that's interesting about this team is that unlike many presidents, he has not chosen long-time confidantes for any of these three positions. I mean, none of these three are people that he has spent enormous time with over the years or were in the foxhole with him, as it were, in the campaign. Is that a challenge?
Brzezinski: Well, first of all it's understandable, because he hasn't been dealing with foreign affairs. His associates have not been really concerned with foreign affairs. His political associates have been concerned with his political career in Illinois and then nationally, and his focus has been largely on domestic issues. But it is a problem. Sure, it is a problem, and that's why he compensates for it by having strong individuals who presume to know something about these subjects and a very strong national security adviser in our former NATO commander and Marine Corps commandant who should be able to crack the whip.
Read the complete interview here.
By AMY HARDER
Following in the wake of last week's Mumbai terrorist attacks, President-elect Barack Obama announced his national security team at a press conference this morning in Chicago. With unrest between India and Pakistan rising over the weekend, Obama addressed the situation briefly but declined to comment further when pressed by a reporter.
"This is one of those times that I reiterate that there is one president at a time," the president-elect said. "We will be engaged in delicate diplomacy in the next several days and weeks. It would be inappropriate for me to comment, but what I can so unequivocally is that both myself and the team that stands beside are absolutely committed eliminating the threat of terrorism."
That team includes several appointments that had been rumored for weeks -- Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Eric Holder as attorney general, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as Homeland Security Department secretary, Obama's campaign foreign policy adviser Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations and Gen. Jim Jones as national security adviser.
After announcing Clinton as his secretary of State, Obama was asked about "belittling" her international experience while on the campaign trial. "This is fun for the press to try to stir up whatever quotes were formed over the course of the campaign," Obama quipped in response. "If you look at statements that [Clinton] and I have made outside of the heat of the campaign, we share a view that America has to be safe and secure." He added that in making his decision, he never experienced a "light bulb moment"; rather, once their primary battle was over, he started thinking of ways they could work together.
Continue reading Obama Stresses Pragmatism Of Security Appointees.
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The Obama-Biden transition team this morning made official several key appointments, confirming reports that the president-elect was seeking Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State, Eric Holder for attorney general and Robert Gates as secretary of Defense.
The team also confirmed that Arizona governor -- and early Obama endorser -- Janet Napolitano was Obama's pick for DHS chief, and named retired Gen. Jim Jones as national security adviser and Susan Rice as ambassador to the U.N. Combined with previously announced names, today's rollout brings the total number of announced picks from the Obama team to 42.
Check back shortly for coverage and video of Obama's press conference unveiling his national security team.
Complete release available after the jump.
Continue reading Clinton, Holder, Gates Officially Announced.
Pundits highlight Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama's differences on Iraq and Iran, and warn that they must work together seamlessly if she becomes secretary of state.
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The New York Times is reporting that New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has accepted President-elect Obama's offer to leave the Senate and join the administration as secretary of State. The appointment, if confirmed, would mark a surprising conclusion to the pair's epic primary contest, coming after a week of speculation over whether Clinton would take the post.
In February, National Journal reporters took stock (subscription) of just how much the two senators differed on foreign policy. Clinton had and has the more hawkish reputation of the two -- he opposed the war in Iraq, she voted to authorize it. "Most of their foreign-policy disagreements, though, are rhetorical, not substantive," the analysis concluded. On Iraq, both pledged to withdraw troops "swiftly; neither would do so completely."
On foreign-policy issues in general, "ultimately their goals are the same," said Moira Whelan, director of strategy and outreach at the National Security Network and an Obama supporter. "Their understanding of what the macro issues are is similar; their approaches to what comes first and how to address them is where you would see the differences."Perhaps because of their similar positions on so many issues, Obama and Clinton go to great lengths to differentiate themselves and appeal to primary voters by stressing whatever distinctions they can. Obama tees up his early opposition to military action in Iraq as evidence that he exercised better judgment than Clinton on the most important foreign-policy issue since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
Continue reading Clinton Report Puts Policy Differences Back In Focus.
The release of the recommendations from the Center for U.S. Global Engagement is not unusual. Many groups promote their policy agendas during presidential transitions to influence the next crop of decision-makers. But the notion of creating a more streamlined, central USAID that houses all the federal government's foreign assistance programs actually was outlined by President-elect Obama in one of several policy proposals published during the campaign. That move makes the idea look less like a recommendation and more like a distinct possibility.
The Obama transition team this afternoon sent reporters a memo with the names of those they had tapped to review three key departments -- Treasury, State and Defense. These three departments are often cited as priorities for Barack Obama and his team.
The review teams, which will get to work by the end of this week, are tasked with keeping the larger transition effort up-to-date on the goings-on within these three massive departments, and help senior appointees navigate the confirmation process and hit the ground running once they're confirmed.
WASHINGTON -- The Obama-Biden Transition Team today announced the Agency Review Team leads for the Department of Treasury, Department of State, and Department of Defense. The Obama-Biden Transition Team also announced the Agency Review Team co-chairs, who will oversee the entire review process, as well as the Agency Review Working Group, which will manage and review the Teams' work and coordinate with other transition teams, including those handling personnel, policy and the budget.The Agency Review Teams will complete a thorough review of key departments, agencies and commissions of the United States government, as well as the White House, to provide the President-elect, Vice President-elect, and key advisors with information needed to make strategic policy, budgetary, and personnel decisions prior to the inauguration. The Teams will begin their efforts by the end of the week, and will ensure that senior appointees have the information necessary to complete the confirmation process, lead their departments, and begin implementing signature policy initiatives immediately after they are sworn in.
Complete release after the jump.
Continue reading Obama Team Turns To State, Defense, Treasury.
Reporting on the announcement of Barack Obama's transition team, Government Executive's
And writing on GovExec's FedBlog, Rosenberg evaluated the changes announced today at State and looked ahead to how the incoming White House can repair the country's standing abroad.Paul Light, a professor at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, said the quick announcement of the transition team was a sign the Obama camp was shifting smoothly from campaign mode to transition mode.
"Moving political people quickly into positions of significant influence is a good sign they're integrating rather than infighting," Light said. "That the day-to-day activity people were all people involved with the campaign is a good sign for a smooth transition."...
John Kamenky, senior fellow at the IBM Center for The Business of Government, said he did not know the advisers, but was "pleased" and "relieved" that the announcement was made so quickly after Election Day.
"They've thought this through and are not having any internal dissension about getting this started," Kamensky said.
And John Palguta, vice president for policy at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, said he thought the structure and composition of the team were promising.
"Having three co-chairs, it's looking like this is a divide-and-conquer effort," he said. "Speed and quality are so important."
Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, also praised the group. "Many of the team members have significant government experience which will serve President-elect Obama well," she said.
