President Obama will likely choose White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew to replace outgoing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner by the end of the week, according to a report late Monday by the Bloomberg news agency.
The move would force Mr. Obama to find a new chief of staff, which would be the first part of a major reshuffling of the White House staff, Bloomberg reports.
Mr. Geithner has indicated he planned to leave Treasury before the end of January, well before the expected showdown with Congress over a new increase in the federal borrowing limit. Mr. Lew has twice headed the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, once under President Clinton and from 2010 to 2012 under Mr. Obama.
Despite a host of new fiscal deadlines early this year, the White House has yet to name a successor and presidential spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that he had no announcements to make on personnel matters.
“I am sure that when the president nominates a successor to Secretary Geithner, he will look forward to speedy consideration by the Senate,” Mr. Carney said. “But I don’t have a timetable for that.”
