CNN

President Obama's pick for undersecretary of defense has drawn questions about his business ties.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The head of the Senate Armed Services committee said Thursday that he needed more information on how the nominee for deputy secretary of defense would handle conflicts of interests in his Pentagon post.

President Obama has nominated William Lynn, an undersecretary of defense during President Clinton's second term, to be deputy to Secretary Robert Gates.

Lynn was a senior vice president at Raytheon, which has billions of dollars in Defense Department contracts. It is is the maker of the Army's Patriot missile system and the Navy's Tomahawk missile and is developing a global positioning satellite communication system for the Air Force.

As deputy secretary, Lynn would be involved in the process of budgeting and acquisitions, in addition to running the day-to-day operations of the Defense Department.

Full story

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The U.S. Senate approved the nomination of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state Wednesday by a vote of 94-2.

The two no votes came from Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

Full story

President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel issued a government-wide directive Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN)– President Obama has wasted no time handling the Bush administration's unfinished business.

White House officials tell CNN Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent a memo Tuesday to all agencies and departments of the federal government. The memo halts further consideration of pending regulations throughout the government until a legal and policy review can be conducted by the Obama administration.

Hillary Clinton will attend a Senate hearing Wednesday on her nomination to be secretary of state.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Senate is set to vote Wednesday on whether to confirm Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, objected Tuesday to the confirmation, preventing the Senate from voting by unanimous consent. His objection means that the Senate will hold a roll call vote on Clinton's nomination Wednesday.

Cornyn said he knows Clinton will be confirmed, but said he delayed the vote because he wanted more time to talk about the foundation run by Hillary Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton signed an agreement with the Obama transition team pledging to limit foreign donations and to release annual disclosures of new donations to his foundation.

Full story

President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel issued a government-wide directive Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN)– President Obama has wasted no time handling the Bush administration's unfinished business.

White House officials tell CNN Obama Chief Staff of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent a memo Tuesday to all agencies and departments of the federal government. The memo halts further consideration of pending regulations throughout the government until a legal and policy review can be conducted by the Obama administration.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Senate will be in session at 3 pm on Inauguration Day, primarily to confirm several top Obama nominees. It’s unclear who will be confirmed, but there is a list of nominees whose confirmations could be called up as early as Tuesday.

It’s known Senate leaders hoped to clear most of the national security-related positions, but there is no final list who will be confirmed Tuesday, and Democrats and Republicans say they may not know until the afternoon.

The confirmations will have to be approved by unanimous consent, meaning no senators object to the person being confirmed. There are no roll call votes scheduled Tuesday.

A preliminary list of potential confirmations circulated to senators follows after the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

Senior staffers from President-elect Obama's transition team will be taken to the White House as soon has his swearing in is complete.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – President-elect Barack Obama and his transition team will be wasting no time getting to work Tuesday, according to two sources close to the Obama transition team. 

Twenty senior staff on Obama’s team have already had their paperwork cleared to enter the White House Tuesday, as soon as Obama is sworn in as the country’s 44th president. Vans will take them from the Capitol to the White House as soon as the swearing in is completed. 

Some senior staff will stay behind to attend the traditional lunch with the new president, but even those staffers will get to work quickly.  They’ll be arriving at the White House even as the inaugural parade snakes through Washington.

Related: Obama plans ambitious first week

Members of the military participated in a recent rehearsal for Tuesday's inauguration.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Incoming President Barack Obama is planning to meet with top military leaders on Wednesday to discuss the war in Iraq and move to begin implementing his campaign promise of removing all combat troops within 16 months, according to two transition officials familiar with the matter.

The meeting with the Joints Chief of Staff and other top military commanders will be on Obama's first full day in office, which suggests the new President wants to send a signal to supporters that despite his heavy focus on the financial crisis he will also address Iraq early in the new administration.

In an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" shortly after his election victory, Obama indicated he would move quickly to start implementing his plan to withdraw troops when asked when the redeployments would begin.

"Well, I've said during the campaign, and I've stuck to this commitment, that as soon as I take office, I will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my national security apparatus, and we will start executing a plan that draws down our troops," Obama said. "Particularly in light of the problems that we're having in Afghanistan, which has continued to worsen. We've got to shore up those efforts."

Eric Holder was asked about a recent Supreme Court gun rights case during his confirmation hearing Thursday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Attorney General-designate Eric Holder conceded during his confirmation hearing Thursday that the government's options for regulating the possession of firearms have been narrowed in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2008 ruling that the Second Amendment ensures an individual right to bear arms.

"Reasonable restrictions are still possible," Holder said, including measures such as a ban on the sale of what are called "cop-killer" bullets.

But, he granted, "we're living in a different world" since the high court's 5-4 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller.

Holder said that he previously viewed the Second Amendment as a "collective right" to bear arms, not an individual right.

The Heller ruling, Holder said, was a "very significant opinion."

Attorney General designate Eric Holder discussed a federal wiretap law during his confirmation hearing Thursday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Asked during his confirmation hearing Thursday whether the president has an "inherent authority" to engage in warrantless surveillance, Attorney General designate Eric Holder said the president would be "well advised" to work "within the dictates" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Holder indicated that a president's power to conduct surveillance is "at its zenith" when the president acts in concert with the intent of Congress as laid out in FISA.

He also said that the U.S. Army Field Manual would be a "good place to start" for the purpose of establishing a uniform standard for torture techniques. He indicated that he did not believe that restricting interrogations to the rules of the Field Manual would impair the ability of the government to successfully combat terrorism.

Holder noted that law enforcement tools like the Patriot Act had to be enforced in a manner consistent with the country's values and "great tradition" of supporting civil liberties.

When asked whether he would support a criminal investigation of Bush administration officials for possible violations of national security and civil
liberties laws, Holder responded that while "nobody is above the law," he also didn't "want to criminalize policy differences that may exist" between the outgoing and incoming administrations.

President-elect Obama's pick for attorney general said Thursday that the incoming administration will close the Gitmo detention facility.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Attorney General designate Eric Holder said Thursday that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will be closed after President-elect Obama takes office, but not as soon as the administration would like.

Watch: Gitmo will be closed, says Holder

The physical act of closing the facility isn't a problem, noted Holder. The more pressing question, he said, is the fate of the roughly 250 inmates currently being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Some of the inmates, Holder said, can be sent to other countries, while others can be prosecuted.

A third group of inmates, Holder indicated, can't be tried "for a variety of reasons" but also can't be released because they are too dangerous.

For that reason, the Obama administration won't be able to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility "as soon as we'd like."

Holder also pledged to only support interrogation techniques that are "consistent with who we are as Americans" and don't "serve as recruiting tools for the enemy." He promised that, if confirmed, the Justice Department would approve of techniques that don't violate "current treaty obligations... but (are)effective."

He cited the claims of military officials who have said that certain so-called "enhanced (interrogation) techniques" don't always produce reliable intelligence.

Read the rest of this entry »

Attorney general designate Eric Holder will likely face tough questions Thursday in his confirmation hearing.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The first taste of the rough and tumble partisanship in the new Congress could be on public display Thursday when the Senate Judiciary Committee considers Attorney General designate Eric Holder's nomination.

Democratic Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, who controls the committee, appears highly likely to have the votes to approve Holder's nomination, but Republicans could make it a bruising and divisive confirmation fight for Holder.

Sen. Arlen Specter has vowed to scrutinize the record of the former Deputy Attorney General.

"There are questions that have to be inquired," he said.

A chief concern of Specter and fellow Republicans is Holder's handling of the controversial last-minute pardon of fugitive Marc Rich as President Clinton left office. Holder's willingness as Deputy Attorney General to go along with the pardon over the objections of U.S. Justice Department career prosecutors continues to haunt Holder, who admits he mishandled the case.

Critics also blame Holder for backing pardons for convicted FALN Puerto Rican prisoners who had committed acts of violence.

"We need to be sure the Attorney General does not bend his views in any way that is partisan or political," Specter said.

Full story

The Obama transition team has made arrangements for a current Treasury official to stay on if Timothy Geithner is not confirmed by the time of Obama's swearing-in.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Stuart Levey, a top Bush official, has agreed to stay on as acting Treasury Secretary if current Secretary Henry Paulson's successor is not confirmed by the Senate by Inauguration Day, a source close to the transition said Wednesday.

The bureaucratic move is significant because the confirmation of President-elect Barack Obama's designate for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, has hit a snag over his failure to pay $34,000 in federal taxes several years ago.

Democratic officials said they remained confident that Geithner's nomination will not be derailed, but acknowledged that an acting Treasury secretary may need to take the job because Republican questions could delay the confirmation beyond Inaugural Day.

Levey, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, would be thrust into the spotlight if he gets the job. The Treasury Department is in the middle of a controversial debate among Congress and the ingoing and outgoing administrations about how the next $350 billion in bailout funds are to be spent.

Mary Schapiro heads the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and has been nominated to lead the SEC.

(CNN) - President-elect Barack Obama's choice to head the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to face questions at her confirmation hearing Thursday about Bernard Madoff - the alleged mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

Mary Schapiro heads the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which has examined portions of Madoff's firm for decades.

Now, questions are being raised about Schapiro's role in the failure to discover Madoff's alleged scheme. The SEC last week was criticized by Congress for missing red flags that alerted regulators to Madoff.

"The SEC never bothered to read the financial statements, not even for half an hour. Neither did FINRA," said U.S. Rep Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California who is also a certified public accountant.

"Clearly, Madoff's filings should have set off alarm bells, but there's a tendency in the regulatory agencies, both FINRA and the SEC, to basically say, we're dealing with gentlemen," Sherman said.

Sherman said it appears the authority missed several chances to catch Madoff.

"Then the question is - is this a systemic problem?" he said.

Full story

WASHINGTON (CNN) - President-elect Obama has asked all U.S. Attorneys to "continue to serve for the time being" and is not demanding immediate wholesale resignations of Bush political appointees, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

In addition, Obama's transition team has asked current Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip, also a Bush appointee, to serve as Acting Attorney General replacing outgoing Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

Filip, a former federal judge from Chicago who has served in the number two position at the Justice Department for eight months, is expected to head the Justice Department until Attorney General designee Eric Holder is confirmed by the Senate.

The handling of U.S. Attorney departures is politically sensitive, after grumbling caused by the immediate firing of all but one U.S. Attorney by President Clinton when he assumed office, and outright anger over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys by the Bush Administration two years ago for what were widely viewed as politically-motivated dismissals.

Read the rest of this entry »

Barack Obama's team says Tim Geithner, left, quickly addressed the mistakes he made.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - President-elect Barack Obama defended his Treasury Secretary-designate Tim Geithner on Wednesday amid reports that Geithner failed to pay the correct amount on his taxes for a time and employed a housekeeper whose work authorization had expired.

Watch: Obama defends Geithner

Obama told reporters he did not think the controversy would jeopardize Geithner's confirmation. "Tim Geithner, when I nominated him, was rightly lauded by people from both sides of the aisle, from the market, from labor, as somebody who was uniquely qualified."

Obama said it was an embarrassment for Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but called it "an innocent mistake."

"It has been corrected. He's paid the penalties. ... So, my expectation is that Tim Geithner will be confirmed. And my expectation is that he is going to do an outstanding job on behalf of the American people," he added.

Geithner received immediate backing from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who met with Obama on Wednesday.

Geithner "has a great resume," Graham said. "I don't see any desire by the Republican Party to play 'gotcha' on something like this. We need a new secretary of the treasury who understands where this country is at financially and has a game plan to move forward. I think he's the right guy."

But other Senate Republicans are demanding more answers on the issue.

Full story

WASHINGTON (CNN) - In an overlooked YouTube video posted on Friday, a spokesman for Barack Obama said the president-elect is committed to ending the policy that bars openly gay men and women from serving in the U.S. armed forces.

Watch: 'Don't ask . . .' may go

In a response to a question on the Web site Change.gov asking whether Obama would get rid of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "You don't hear politicians give a one-word answer much. But it's 'Yes.'"

Gibbs on Wednesday expanded on his answer, saying, "There are many challenges facing our nation now and the president-elect is focused first and foremost on jump-starting this economy.

"So not everything will get done in the beginning but he's committed to following through" with ending the policy against being openly gay in the military.

Full story

The incoming president and vice president will meet with the Supreme Court Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Continuing a growing tradition between incoming chief executives and the chief justice of the highest court in the land, President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden will visit the Supreme Court Wednesday afternoon.

The two will visit the high court in response to an invitation from Chief Justice John Roberts, who noted in a December 5 letter to Obama, a former constitutional law professor, that previous presidents-elect had visited the
Supreme Court before taking office as a courtesy "so that colleagues in public
service might become better acquainted."

"The Associate Justices and I would be pleased to see that sporadic practice become a congenial tradition," said Roberts. "You will receive a warm welcome."

Both Obama and Biden - while serving in the Senate - voted against Roberts as chief justice in 2005 and Justice Samuel Alito in early 2006.

Roberts will administer the presidential oath of office to Obama on January 20. Justice John Paul Stevens - the oldest member of the high court - will administer the vice presidential oath to Biden.

This is the third time in recent history, according to the Obama transition team, that a president-elect and vice president-elect have visited the Supreme Court. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush visited the high court in November 1980. Bill Clinton and Al Gore visited the court in December 1992.

The previous meetings, however, were held at the suggestion of the incoming president. Roberts' personal invitation represents a change in that precedent.

On the eve of his historic inauguration, President-elect Obama has written a letter to his daughters about why he ran for the White House.

(CNN) – With the nation fighting two wars, the economy in recession, and signs that congressional Democrats will be asserting their institutional independence from the very beginning of his administration, President-elect Barack Obama has still found time to attend to every detail of his transition to power.

In a letter that will appear in Parade magazine this Sunday, Obama explains to his two daughters why he decided to run for president and, in the process, forever change their lives along with his.

“When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me – about how I’d make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want,” Obama says in the letter published on the magazine’s Web site Wednesday. But with the birth of Malia and Sasha, “suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn’t seem so important anymore.”

“I realized that my own life wouldn’t count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours,” he writes. “In the end, girls, that’s why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation.”

Read the rest of this entry »

In announcing the Obamas' pick to renovate the East Wing, Mrs. Obama said Mrs. Bush has been a wonderful steward of the White House for the last eight years.

(CNN) – The incoming first family will have some expert help in making their new home their own.

Michelle Obama has selected interior designer Michael Smith to help the Obamas redecorate the private residence in the East Wing of the White House.

“Laura Bush has been a wonderful steward of The White House and created a beautiful residence for her family,” Michelle Obama said in a statement issued by the Obama transition team Tuesday evening. “I look forward to adding our own touch to the East Wing and creating a living space where our family feels comfortable, happy and settled. Michael shares my vision for creating a family friendly feel to our new home and incorporating some new perspectives from some of America’s greatest artists and designers.”

Smith, a native of California, studied at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and in London.

“I am delighted to work with the Obamas as they bring their own energy and style to the residence at The White House,” Smith said in the statement. “The family’s casual style, their interest in bringing 20th Century American artists to the forefront and utilizing affordable brands and products will serve as our guiding principles as we make the residence feel like their home.”

Smith also takes “particular pride in his family-focused clientele and approach,” according to the statement.

–CNN National Political Correspondent Jessica Yellin contributed to this report.