A key Senate committee Tuesday cleared US
President Barack Obama's nominee to serve as treasury secretary.
Jack Lew was approved by the Senate Finance Committee 19-5 and
will next face a confirmation vote by the full Senate, which is
expected to be later this week.
Obama is reshuffling his cabinet at the start of his second term
in office, with new faces at the State Department, Defence Department
and elsewhere.
Defence secretary nominee Chuck Hagel has run into stiff
opposition from Republicans, who blocked a vote to proceed on his
confirmation earlier this month.
Lew, a long-time Washington insider, would succeed first-term
treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, who left office on January 26.
Lew, 57, has been Obama's chief of staff since January 2012. He
previously served as chief of the White House Office of Management
and Budget under both Obama from 2010-12 and under president Bill
Clinton from 1998-2001.
