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Chertoff investigated vince foster { January 12 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05012/440843.stmhttp://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05012/440843.stm
Judge is nominated to head homeland security
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
By Ann McFeatters, Post-Gazette National Bureau
WASHINGTON -- President Bush yesterday nominated federal appeals court judge Michael Chertoff, 51, an architect of the USA Patriot Act, to be secretary of the 180,000-employee Department of Homeland Security.
Chertoff, who ran the criminal division of the Justice Department for the first three years of Bush's tenure, was the president's second choice. On Dec. 3, the president tapped former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik for the job, but Kerik withdrew Dec. 12 in the wake of allegations that he had failed to pay taxes on a nanny illegally in the country, questions about his business dealings and concerns over personal improprieties.
Chertoff, whose wife and two children joined him at the White House yesterday, was named to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court, based in Philadelphia, in 2003. If confirmed by the Senate, he will give up that seat's lifetime tenure to take the homeland security job.
Bush said yesterday, "When Mike is confirmed by the Senate, the Department of Homeland Security will be led by a practical organizer, a skilled manager and a brilliant thinker."
Bush called Chertoff to offer him the job Sunday while riding back to the White House in his motorcade after completing an 18-mile bicycle ride, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said.
Chertoff first came to the attention of the public as a prosecutor of mob figures in New York, when he was under the direction of former U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani. After serving as a U.S. attorney in New Jersey, he became the chief lawyer for Republicans on the staff of the Senate committee that investigated former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton over the failed Whitewater real estate deal. He also investigated the suicide of Vince Foster, general counsel in the Clinton White House.
Clinton was the only senator to vote against confirming Chertoff for the federal bench. But her colleague, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., called Chertof an excellent choice to head homeland security. Giuliani, who had recommended the more colorful Kerik, also praised Chertoff's selection.
Although the Whitewater episode left many Democrats embittered over what they saw as a politically motivated attempt to derail the Clinton presidency, Chertoff's role in setting the policy of that led to the interview thousands of Muslims after 9/11, holding some of them, without charges, will be more controversial.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it is concerned that Chertoff helped set the policy to permit the FBI to infiltrate religious and political meetings and allow the Bureau of Prisons to let agents eavesdrop on confidential attorney-client conversations. He also promoted trying prisoners held at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by military tribunals rather than in civilian courts.
The ACLU urged the Senate to question him "aggressively" about his commitment to civil liberties. ACLU Chief Legislative Counsel Gregory Nojeim said his organization was "troubled that his public record suggests he sees the Bill of Rights as an obstacle to national security, rather than a guidebook for how to do security properly."
Nonetheless, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., who helped create the Department of Homeland Security, predicted that Chertoff would be confirmed easily because he has won Senate confirmation on three prior occasions.
The son of a rabbi from Elizabeth, N.J., Chertoff -- an improbably thin, balding man with intense dark eyes, a white goatee and a reputation as a tough, disciplined lawyer -- is a magna cum laude Harvard Law School graduate. He was a clerk for former Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, then briefly became a partner in a Washington law firm before serving as a prosecutor.
Despite his solid background in law enforcement, he has little apparent experience in managing a large bureaucracy. Critics of the year-old Department of Homeland Security -- including its former inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, who recently lost his job when Bush did not renominate him -- have complained that the department is in urgent need of a skilled manager who can force competing bureaucrats to work together. Ervin has been telling reporters that the department is not working well, has wasted millions of dollars and has done too little to make the nation safer.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended Chertoff's experience, saying he oversaw "hundreds of employees" at Justice. McClellan said Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge "did a tremendous job of getting that organization up and running and improving our airline security and strengthening our border and port security and taking steps to protect our critical infrastructure. Judge Chertoff will build upon that."
Chertoff said Ridge, who had executive experience as former governor of Pennsylvania, "performed magnificently" and "leaves some very big shoes to fill." The nominee has defended the Justice Department's anti-terrorism policies and the Patriot Act as fair and balanced.
Asked about Chertoff's nomination, Ridge said, "He comes well-equipped by experience and temperament and background to be a very effective and capable secretary."
Anticipating his critics, Chertoff yesterday said, "If confirmed, I pledge to devote all my energy to promoting our homeland security and, as important, to preserving our fundamental liberties."
Bush clapped him on the back and praised him: "Good job. Well spoken."
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