Early life

Chertoff was born on November 28, 1953 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. His father was Rabbi Gershon Baruch Chertoff (1915-96), a Talmud scholar and the former leader of the Congregation B'nai Israel in Elizabeth. His mother is Livia Chertoff (née Eisen), an Israeli citizen and the first flight attendant for El Al. His paternal grandparents are Rabbi Paul Chertoff and Esther Barish Chertoff.

Chertoff went to the Jewish Educational Center in Elizabeth as well as the Pingry School. He later attended Harvard College, graduating in 1975, although he spent his sophomore year at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he was a research assistant on John Hart Ely's book Democracy and Distrust. After graduating magna cum laude in 1978, Chertoff went on to clerk for appellate judge Murray Gurfein for a year before clerking for United States Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. 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 United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, 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.

Chertoff has been a resident of Westfield, New Jersey.

Government employment

In September 1986, together with U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Rudolph Giuliani, Chertoff was instrumental in the crackdown on organized crime in the Mafia Commission Trial.

In 1990, Chertoff was appointed by President George H. W. Bush as United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Among his most important cases, in 1992 Chertoff put second-term Jersey City mayor Gerald McCann in federal prison for over two years on charges of defrauding money from a savings and loan scam. 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 and 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, Chertoff took an active role in the Whitewater investigation against Bill and Hillary Clinton, serving as the special counsel for the Senate Whitewater Committee studying allegations against the Clintons.

In 2000, Chertoff worked as special counsel to the New Jersey 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 suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

Chertoff also led the prosecution's case against accounting firm Arthur Andersen for destroying documents relating to the Enron collapse. The prosecution of Arthur Andersen was controversial, as the firm was effectively dissolved, resulting in the loss of 26,000 jobs. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction and the case has not been retried. At the Department of Justice, 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 detention of thousands of Middle Eastern immigrants.

On March 5, 2003, Chertoff was nominated by President Bush to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated by Morton I. Greenberg. He was confirmed by the Senate 88-1 on June 9, 2003, with Senator Hillary Clinton of New York casting the lone dissenting vote, and received his commission the following day. Mrs. Clinton 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.

Secretary of Homeland Security and subsequent career

In late 2004, Bernard Kerik was forced to decline President Bush's offer to replace Tom Ridge, the outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security. After a lengthy search to find a suitable replacement, Bush nominated Chertoff to the post in January 2005, citing his experience with post-9/11 terror legislation. He was unanimously approved for the position by the United States Senate on February 15, 2005.

Hurricane Katrina occurred while Chertoff was Secretary of Homeland Security. The Department was criticized for its lack of preparation; though, most criticism was directed toward the Federal Emergency Management Agency. However, there was also criticism that DHS in general, and Chertoff in particular, responded poorly to the event, ignoring crucial information about the catastrophic nature of the storm and devoting little attention to the federal response to what became the most costly disaster in American history.

Chertoff was the Bush administration's point man for pushing the comprehensive immigration reform bill, a measure that stalled in the Senate in June 2007.

Chertoff was asked by the Obama administration to stay in his post until 9 a.m. on January 21, 2009, (one day after President Obama's inauguration) "to ensure a smooth transition".

He went on to form The Chertoff Group (TCG) on February 2, 2009 to work on crisis and risk management. The firm is also led by Chad Sweet; the Chief of Staff of Homeland Security while Chertoff was Secretary and a two year stint at the Directorate of Operations for the CIA. They also employ Charles E. Allen, Larry Castro, Jay M. Cohen, General Michael V. Hayden and other former government employees.

Views

Construction of border fence

In April 2008, Chertoff was criticized in a New York Times editorial for waiving the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and other environmental protection legislation to construct a 700-mile (1,100 km) fence along the Mexico-United States border. The Times wrote: "To the long list of things the Bush administration is willing to trash in its rush to appease immigration hard-liners, you can now add dozens of important environmental laws and hundreds of thousands of acres of fragile habitat on the southern border."

According to New York Times columnist Adam Liptak, Chertoff had excluded the Department of Homeland Security from having to follow laws "protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom."

A report issued by the Congressional Research Service, the non-partisan research division of the Library of Congress, said that the unchecked delegation of powers to Chertoff was unprecedented: "After a review of federal law, primarily through electronic database searches and consultations with various CRS experts, we were unable to locate a waiver provision identical to that of §102 of H.R. 418—i.e., a provision that contains 'notwithstanding' language, provides a secretary of an executive agency the authority to waive all laws such secretary determines necessary, and directs the secretary to waive such laws."

Actions regarding illegal immigration

In September 2007, Chertoff told a House committee that the DHS would not tolerate interference by sanctuary cities that would block the "Basic Pilot Program," which requires some types of employers to validate the legal status of their workers. He said that the DHS is exploring its legal options and intends to take action to prevent any interference with the law.

In 2008 it became public that the housekeeping company Chertoff had hired to clean his house employed illegal immigrants.

Globalization

At the Global Creative Leadership Summit in 2009, Chertoff described globalization as a double-edged sword. Although globalization may help raise the standard of living for people around the world, Chertoff claims that it can also enable terrorists and transnational criminals.

Body scanners

Michael Chertoff has been an advocate of enhanced technologies, such as full body scanners. His lobbying firm Chertoff Group (founded 2009) represents manufacturers of the scanners.

Climate Change

Michael Chertoff co-signed the preface to the report "National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change" published in 2014 where he stated that "projected climate change is a complex multi-decade challenge. Without action to build resilience, it will increase security risks over much of the planet. It will not only increase threats to developing nations in resource-challenged parts of the world, but it will also test the security of nations with robust capability, including significant elements of our National Power here at home."

[ Source: Wikipedia ]