DHSJeh Johnson nominated to head DHS
President Barak Obama will nominate former Pentagon official Jeh (pronounced “Jay”) Johnson as the next secretary of homeland security. Johnson, 56, is a graduate of Morehouse College and Columbia Law School. He is grandson of sociologist and Fisk University president Dr. Charles S. Johnson. From January 2009 to December 2012 he was General Counsel of the Department of Defense.
Jeh Johnson, incoming DHS secretary // Source: defense.gov
President Barak Obama will nominate former Pentagon official Jeh (pronounced “Jay”) Johnson as the next secretary of homeland security.
Johnson, 56, grew up in Wappingers Falls, New York. He is a graduate of Morehouse College and Columbia Law School. He is grandson of sociologist and Fisk University president Dr. Charles S. Johnson. Johnson served as Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1989 to 1991. From 1998 to 2001, he was General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force. From January 2009 to December 2012 he was General Counsel of the Department of Defense.
NBC News notes that he won headlines in 2012 for a speech at Oxford University, in which he described a future “tipping point” at which al Qaeda would be so weakened that it would be unable to mount an attack on the United States and would be “effectively destroyed.”
From 1992 to 1998, and from 2001 to 2009, he was partner at the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. Johnson, who joined the firm in the mid-1980s, was made partner in the firm in 1992, the first African American to be named partner by the firm.
He Returned to Paul, Weiss after leaving the Department of Defense in December 2012.
In a speech last year at Yale Law School, Johnson said that working for the Obama administration “the highlight of [his] professional life.”
“I have been on an incredible journey with Barack Obama … going back to November 2006 when he recruited me to the presidential campaign he was about to launch,” Johnson said. “I remember thinking then, ‘This is a long-shot, but it will be exciting, historic, and how many times in my life will someone personally ask me to help him become president.’”
Johnson will be introduced at a ceremony Friday.
“The President is selecting Johnson because he is one the most highly qualified and respected national security leaders, having served as the senior lawyer for the largest government agency in the world,” said one White House official.
The USA Today quotes a White House official to say that during his tenure at the Defense Department, Johnson exhibited “sound judgment” and provided “prior legal review and approval of every military operation approved by the President and Secretary of Defense.”
