Michael Chertoff
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Michael Chertoff (born November 28, 1953) is the current United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
He previously served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals, as a federal prosecutor, and as assistant U.S. Attorney General. He was nominated to succeed Tom Ridge as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security by President George W. Bush on January 11, 2005 . His nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 15, 2005, in a unanimous 98-0 vote, and Chertoff was sworn into office the same day (although a ceremonial swearing-in presided over by Bush took place on March 3).
Chertoff is Jewish and is married to Meryl Justin. They have two children and live in Potomac, Maryland.
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[edit] Early history
Chertoff was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the son of Rabbi Gershon Baruch Chertoff, the former leader of the B'nai Israel Congregation in Elizabeth, and El Al Israel Airlines first flight attendant Livia Chertoff, nee Eisen. His paternal grandfather, Rabbi Paul Chertoff, emigrated from Russia. His grandfather was a noted Talmudic scholar.
Chertoff went to The Pingry School for high school. He later attended Harvard University, graduating in 1975. He then graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1978, going on to clerk for appellate judge Murray Gurfein for a year before clerking for United States Supreme Court justice William Brennan from 1979 to 1980. He worked in private practice with Latham & Watkins from 1980 to 1983 before being hired as a prosecutor by Rudolph Giuliani, then the U.S. attorney for Manhattan, working on Mafia and political corruption-related cases. In the mid 1990s, Chertoff returned to Latham & Watkins for a brief period, founding the firm's office in Newark, New Jersey.
[edit] Public service
He was appointed by President George H. W. Bush in 1990 as United States Attorney for the state in 1990. Chertoff was asked to stay in his position when the Clinton administration took office in 1993, at the request of Democratic Senator Bill Bradley; he was the only U.S. attorney not replaced. Chertoff stayed with the U.S. Attorney's office until 1994, when he entered private practice, returning to Latham & Watkins as a partner.
Despite his friendly relationship with some Democrats, during the Whitewater scandal investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Chertoff was special counsel for the Senate committee studying allegations against the Clintons. When Chertoff faced Senate confirmation in 2003 for a federal judgeship, Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a Senator from New York, cast the lone dissenting vote against Chertoff's confirmation. She explained that her vote was in protest of the way junior White House staffers were "very badly treated" by Chertoff's staff during the Whitewater investigation.
Chertoff is the co-author, along with Viet Dinh, of the USA PATRIOT Act, signed into law October 26, 2001. As head of the Justice Department's criminal division, he advised the Central Intelligence Agency on the outer limits of legality in coercive interrogation sessions.
In 2000, Chertoff worked as special counsel to the New Jersey State Senate Judiciary Committee, investigating racial profiling in New Jersey. He also did some fundraising for George W. Bush and other Republicans during the 2000 election cycle and advised Bush's presidential campaign on criminal justice issues. From 2001 to 2003, he headed the criminal division of the Department of Justice, leading the prosecution's case against terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui and against accounting firm Arthur Andersen for destroying documents relating to the Enron collapse. His prosecution of Arthur Andersen was controversial, resulting in the collapse of the firm and the loss of employment by its 26,000 employees. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction and the case has not been retried. At the DOJ, he also came under fire as one of the chief architects of the Bush Administration's legal strategies in the War on Terror, particularly regarding the detainment of thousands of Middle Eastern immigrants. Chertoff was appointed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia by Bush on March 5, 2003, and was confirmed by the Senate 88-1 on June 9.
In late 2004, after the controversial Bernard Kerik was forced to decline President Bush's offer to replace the outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, a lengthy search ensued to find a suitable replacement. Citing his experience with post-9/11 terror legislation, Bush nominated Chertoff to the post in January 2005. He was unanimously approved for the position of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security by the Senate on February 15, 2005.
Most recently Chertoff has managed the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina. On the third of September, several days after the initial strike of the hurricane many (including the New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin) indicated severe dissatisfaction with the response from Washington, citing the delay between the general knowledge of the storm's likely impact and any effective federal response. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco declared a state of emergency on August 26 [1]; a week later, New Orleans remained in a state of chaos.
While defending the federal government's response in a September 3, 2005 press conference, Chertoff asserted that no one had ever predicted a disaster of this magnitude; however, warnings had in fact come for years from experts in the private sector as well as government agencies at all levels, including FEMA itself, who had identified a disaster such as this as one of the three most likely catastrophes to strike the US. CNN: [2] Houston Chronicle: [3].
[edit] External links
[edit] Official
[edit] Nomination
- President Nominates Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security transcript
- Bush names new US security chief
- A rabbi’s son with sense of balance nominated to head Homeland Security
- Homeland Security by the Colors
[edit] Hurricane Katrina
- Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows (from Knight-Ridder)
- Memo from Chertoff to other federal agencies issued on August 30
- U.S. Aid Effort Criticized in New Orleans
- Looting, Snipers Mar New Orleans Evacuation
[edit] Other news reports
- Robert Novak: Unyielding Chertoff
- Michael Chertoff's Profile in BBC
- Security Nominee Gave Advice to the C.I.A. on Torture Laws
| Preceded by: Tom Ridge | United States Secretary of Homeland Security Under President George W. Bush 2005 – present | Incumbent |
| Preceded by: Jim Nicholson | United States order of precedence as of 2006 | Succeeded by: Joshua Bolten |
| United States Secretaries of Homeland Security
<td style="vertical-align: middle; width: 1px" rowspan="2"> Image:US Department of Homeland Security Seal.svg </td> |
|---|
| Ridge • Chertoff |
| Current members of the Cabinet of President George W. Bush
<td style="vertical-align: middle; width: 1px" rowspan="2"> |
|---|
| Bodman • Bolten • Chao • Cheney • Chertoff • Gonzales • Gutierrez • Jackson • Johanns • Johnson • Kempthorne • Leavitt • Nicholson • Paulson • Peters • Portman • Rice • Rumsfeld • Schwab • Spellings • Walters |
fr:Michael Chertoff nl:Michael Chertoff ru:Чертофф, Майкл sh:Michael Chertoff
Categories: 1953 births | New Jersey lawyers | New York lawyers | Assistant Attorneys General of the United States | Harvard Law School alumni | Jewish-American politicians | Jewish-American jurists | Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit | Living people | United States Secretaries of Homeland Security | American conservatives
