Obama to announce Kerry nomination for secretary of state

President Barack Obama on Friday will nominate U.S. Senator John Kerry to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, marking his first major step in the overhaul of his national security team on the cusp of his second term.

Obama settled on Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, after U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew from consideration last week. The Massachusetts Democrat is expected to win easy confirmation from his Senate colleagues.

Obama will announce Kerry's nomination at 1:30 p.m. EST but will withhold any decision on a new defense secretary, administration officials said. The president has held off in the face of a growing backlash from critics of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, considered a leading candidate to replace Leon Panetta at the Pentagon.

Kerry, 69, a stalwart Obama supporter known to have long coveted the job of America's top diplomat, will take over from Clinton, who has been consistently rated as the most popular member of the president's cabinet.

But he will also have to pick up the pieces after a scathing official inquiry found serious security lapses by the State Department in the deadly September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya - a report that has tarnished the final days of Clinton's tenure.

Kerry's nomination follows a political firestorm that engulfed Rice, seen as the early favorite for the State job, spearheaded by Republicans fiercely critical of her role in the administration's early explanations for the Benghazi assault.

Rice, defended by Obama, said last Thursday she was withdrawing her name from consideration to avoid a potentially lengthy and disruptive confirmation process.

But White House aides acknowledge that Kerry could be handicapped somewhat for lacking the close personal bond that Rice has with Obama.

On top of that, Kerry's departure from the Senate forces Democrats to defend his seat. Just-defeated but still-popular Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown, who took office in early 2010 after winning the last special election for a Massachusetts seat, is widely expected to run.

Obama had originally weighed rolling out his top national security appointments in a single package this week. But the controversy over Hagel apparently led the White House to take a more piecemeal approach.

Further complicating decisions on the remaining appointments, Obama's attention has been dominated in recent by the "fiscal cliff" standoff and the fallout from last week's deadly shooting rampage at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Also in the mix for the Pentagon job are Michele Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense for policy, and Ashton Carter, the current deputy defense secretary.