Washington Post
By David Nakamura,
White House Chief of Staff William Daley will quit his post this afternoon less than a year after taking the job, sources said, shaking up the White House management as President Obama gears up for his reelection.
Daley, 63, will be replaced by Budget Director Jacob Lew, the sources added. The president is expected to address the changes in a public statement at 3 p.m.
With Obama scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address Jan. 24, Daley will stay on through the end of the month to help ease the transition.
Daley’s future in the White House was cast into doubt late last year after reports that he had relinquished day-to-day operations to senior adviser Pete Rouse.
Obama tapped Daley in January to replace Rahm Emanuel, who served in the role during the president’s first two years in office but left to run for mayor Chicago, which he won. Daley, a longtime banker who served as secretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration, was expected to help the White House’s relations with Wall Street as it implemented financial reforms in the wake of the recession.
But Daley never appeared comfortable in the job, drawing criticism during the White House’s fight with Congressional Republicans during the debt ceiling negotiations last summer. In one embarrassing rebuke, Obama requested to speak to a rare joint session of Congress in September only to be rejected by House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who invited him instead to come a day later. The White House claimed that Daley had secured Boehner’s agreement to the original date ahead of time, but the speaker’s office denied that an agreement was in place.