Chertoff's DHS Has a Justice Dept. Feel

A former Justice Department official who is on track to being a member of Chertoff's inner circle at Homeland Security is Philip J. Perry , who is married to Vice President Cheney's daughter Elizabeth. Perry has been nominated, but not confirmed, as general counsel to the Department of Homeland Security.

Now a partner at Latham & Watkins, Perry has been general counsel of OMB. Before that, he was acting associate attorney general and principal deputy associate attorney general in President Bush's first term.

Another Latham partner, Scott Weber , has joined Chertoff's inner circle as a senior counselor. Weber, along with Chertoff, who also was a Latham law partner at the time, served as special counsel to the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee for its 2000-2001 review of racial profiling and the State Police.

Plenty of other people without Justice Department backgrounds also will help Chertoff run Homeland Security.

One is Michael P. Jackson , widely described as an effective manager with experience overseeing complex organizations, who will be Chertoff's deputy homeland security secretary. Before joining the department several weeks ago, he was chief operating officer of Aecom Technology Corp., an engineering contractor for government agencies and firms. He has a reputation for being adept with technology and the contracting world.

From 2001 to 2003, Jackson served as the deputy secretary at the Transportation Department, where he helped create the Transportation Security Administration, whose airport screeners search air travelers' bags and which is now part of Homeland Security.

Jackson, a former political science professor at Georgetown University, also worked for President George H.W. Bush, first as Cabinet liaison at the White House and later as chief of staff at the Transportation Department when now-White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. was secretary. During the Clinton administration, Jackson ran a unit of Lockheed Martin Corp. that worked on transportation issues.

Brian R. Besanceney , who will be Chertoff's assistant secretary for public affairs, was deputy director of White House communications in Bush's first term and lead spokesman for the Homeland Security Council. Earlier, he was a spokesman for then-Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), now the U.S. trade representative.

Chertoff is not naming an undersecretary for border and transportation security until he figures out what to do with that bureaucracy, which one outside panel recommended should be eliminated, department officials said. Asa Hutchinson, who formerly held that job, left for the private sector and a run for governor of Arkansas.