Michael Chertoff (born November 28, 1953), is the current United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
He previously served as a United States Court of Appeals judge and former federal prosecutor, and assistant U.S. Attorney General. He was nominated as Homeland Security Secretary by President George W. Bush on January 11, 2005 to succeed Tom Ridge as Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security. He was confirmed in this position by the U.S. Senate on February 15, 2005, in a unanimous 98-0 vote, and sworn into office the same day (although a ceremonial swearing-in presided over by Bush took place on March 3).
Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the son of a rabbi, Chertoff went to The Pingry School in 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 1987, Chertoff joined the office of the U.S. Attorney for the state of New Jersey; 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 even as the Clinton administration took office in 1993, at the request of Democratic Senator Bill Bradley; he was the only U.S. attorney not replaced in that partisan shift. 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, explaining that her vote was in protest of the way junior White House staffers were "very badly treated" by Chernoff's staff during the Whitewater investigation.
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 prosecutions case against terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui and against accounting firm Arthur Andersen for destroying documents relating to the Enron collapse. There, he 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 George W. 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 ensured to find a suitable replacement. Citing his experience with post-911 terror legislation, Bush eventually nominated Chertoff to the post.
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Last updated: 10-22-2005 09:19:51
