Former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle has accepted Obama's offer to be secretary of Health and Human Services, Democratic officials said yesterday. And Obama appears to have settled on Congressional Budget Office chief Peter Orszag to be his budget director, Capitol Hill Democrats said.
Face-to-face meetings between the transition team and lawyers representing the Clintons have ended, but aides to the president-elect said some final vetting is still underway.
Hoping to ease concerns about possible conflicts of interest, Bill Clinton has shifted a longstanding policy and agreed to publicly disclose the names of all donors who have given more than $250 to his presidential library and foundation. Officials were trying to work out the details on how to handle those who gave money on the condition that their names would not be revealed.
The former president has also agreed to submit future foundation activities and paid speeches to a strict ethics review, Democrats knowledgeable about the discussions said. They also said that Clinton would step away from day-to-day responsibility for his foundation while his wife serves and would alert the State Department of any new sources of income and to his speechmaking.
"I'll do whatever they want," he told reporters yesterday.
Friends said Hillary Clinton is torn about leaving the Senate, where she served for nearly eight years and where she had hoped to be a leading voice on healthcare and other issues. She is expected to make a decision soon.
The appointment of Daschle has not been announced, but Democratic officials said the job is his barring an unforeseen problem as Obama's team reviews his background. Obama has pledged to reduce the influence of lobbyists in Washington, which means one area of review will include the lobbying connections of his wife, Linda Hall Daschle, who was acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration in the Clinton administration and has since become one of Washington's top lobbyists, representing mostly airline-related companies.
