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Choice drew up terror suspect legal strategy { January 12 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/shared/news/politics/stories/01/12chertoff.htmlhttp://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/shared/news/politics/stories/01/12chertoff.html
New Homeland Security choice drew up legal strategy in war against terrorists
By Julia Malone
Cox News Service
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
WASHINGTON — Michael Chertoff, named Tuesday to be the second homeland security chief, may not be a familiar public figure. But his impact on the nation's counter-terrorism efforts has already been far-reaching.
As a veteran prosector and chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, Chertoff drafted the federal government's legal response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mobilizing rarely used tools, he detained hundreds of foreigners on minor immigration charges and held others as material witnesses in an immediate search for possible co-conspirators.
Later, Chertoff helped convince Congress to enact the Patriot Act to allow the government to use intelligence findings to prosecute suspects and to expand federal wire-tapping powers.
Although those actions and others have drawn criticism from civil liberties advocates, Chertoff easily won confirmation in 2003 for a judgeship on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court in Philadelphia.
He was just settling into the post when the White House, looking for a new nominee for secretary of the Homeland Security Department, offered to put Chertoff back closer to the center of action. That is almost certainly closer to the temperament of 51-year-old Chertoff, known for a high energy style. One former co-worker described him as unable to keep his seat as he paced the floor and spoke animatedly during meetings.
"Judge Mike Chertoff," as President Bush referred to him Tuesday, is a stark contrast to the president's earlier choice of former New York police chief Bernard Kerik, a rough-hewn high school drop-out who brought the street experience of a "first responder" but who dropped out amid ethical questions.
Chertoff, who has the trim build of a runner and a reputation for discipline, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. He has spent most of his career in the prosecuting side of law enforcement and won guilty verdicts against some of New York's biggest mobsters.
The son of a Jewish rabbi and a homemaker, Chertoff was raised in Elizabeth, N.J., is married and is the father of two.
Not long after graduating from law school, he spent a year clerking for Associate Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., known for his liberal views. But Chertoff avoided political leanings in his early career, even as he served as U.S. Attorney in his home state of New Jersey under the first President Bush.
In 1995, however, he took on a partisan task, becoming the counsel for the Senate Republicans in the Whitewater investigation of President Bill Clinton. Although the probe of Arkansas business dealings resulted in no charges against Clinton, he defended it afterwards as a serious issue that had led to the convictions of others.
Chertoff was named associate attorney general and top criminal prosecutor by the current president. That post put him in contact with many of the federal agencies, including those in the intelligence community, that are involved in homeland security.
He has not had a management job to compare with leading the two-year-old Homeland Security Department, an amalgamation of 22 different federal agencies with 180,000 employees.
House Homeland Security committee Chairman Christopher Cox said he had confidence that Chertoff could master the new post. "His experience in counter-terrorism at Justice has prepared him well, and his capacity to quickly master other new areas of his responsibilities is boundless," said Cox, a California Republican who was a law school mate of the nominee.
Some lawmakers, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, are demanding that he answer tough questions about prosecution and eaves-dropping policies that he helped engineer.
However, former Rep. Bob Barr, a Republican from Georgia and an outspoken civil libertarian, said Tuesday, "I'm hoping that his experience on the judiciary will temper some of his pro-executive branch views."
Chertoff has won three Senate confirmations for earlier jobs and this one is expected to be rapid, although perhaps not unanimous. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York Democrat who along with her husband was once the target of the Whitewater probe, voted against Chertoff on two earlier confirmations.
Julia Malone's e-mail address is jmalone(at)coxnews.com.
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