Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State planned to testify herself in January. The Benghazi matter also had an effect on Clinton's successor as Secretary of State. Obama's first choice was Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, but she came under heavy criticism from Congressional Republicans for what they felt were incorrect or deceptive statements in the aftermath of the attack, and by mid-December she withdrew her name from consideration. Obama then nominated Senator John Kerry for the position instead. By one report, Clinton had preferred Kerry over Rice all along anyway. Although still not well enough to attend the December 21 announcement of Kerry's nomination, Clinton
Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State have been more highly critical of her tenure as Secretary; in a 2015 book entitled "", former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney argue that Clinton's tenure, and the Obama administration's foreign policy generally, weakened U.S. standing in its international relations and deviated sharply from 70 years of well-established, bipartisan U.S. foreign and defense policy that the United States had generally adhered to since World War II. Others, however, such as Eric Schmidt disagree, and have argued that Clinton was "perhaps the most significant secretary of state since" Acheson. All agreed on her celebrity; as one unnamed