New Secretary Brings In Former Colleagues to Build Management Cadre
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, faced with a department whose leadership ranks thinned as President Bush started his second term, has recruited a number of lawyers who were his colleagues when he was a top Justice Department official, among his other new hires.
But some of the top positions at Homeland Security remain unfilled as Chertoff mulls reorganizing the department or collapsing various bureaucracies into one another, in the first major internal review of its activities since the department was launched two years ago.
"Some top positions may not be filled until the review is complete," said one department official.
People familiar with Chertoff and his predecessor, Tom Ridge, say that, based on Chertoff's earlier performance as head of the Justice Department's criminal division, Chertoff demands a more crisply functioning operation. Ridge as homeland security secretary at times delayed making decisions out of a desire to avoid confronting dissension on his team, current and former department officials said.
Given his emphasis on teamwork, it is natural that Chertoff would gather around him some of the people whose work he knows well from the Justice Department, said some people who know him.
For his inner circle, Chertoff named as his chief of staff John F. Wood , who largely will handle Homeland Security's day-to-day operations. Previously, he was counselor to then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, overseeing the civil, civil rights, antitrust, environment and tax divisions. In 2002 and 2003, Wood helped craft major legislative and regulatory policies as deputy general counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Before that, Wood helped run Justice Department's civil litigation work. From 1997 to 1998, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and from 1998 to 2001 he worked at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis.
Another Justice Department graduate, Chad N. Boudreaux , will be Chertoff's deputy chief of staff. Previously he was senior counsel to the deputy attorney general, a job in which he helped oversee policies involving the FBI, efforts to merge different agencies' terrorist databases and privacy.
From 2001 to 2004, Boudreaux held other ranking jobs at the Justice Department, working for the deputy attorney general and the civil division. He started his legal career at a law firm in Austin.
Also coming from the Justice Department:
· Adam Isles , who will be a counselor to Chertoff. Since 2004, he has been counsel to the assistant attorney general for the criminal division, where he worked on national security matters, issues regarding weapons of mass destruction and the reconstitution of a justice system in Iraq. Isles has held other jobs at the Justice Department and the National Security Council as well.
· Sigal Mandelker , counselor to Chertoff. She previously was assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. From May 2003 to January 2004, Mandelker was counsel to the deputy attorney general and coordinated national security and terrorism issues in the Justice Department and with other agencies; she was special assistant to Chertoff when he was assistant attorney general at the criminal division, from 2002 to 2003. She also clerked for Justice Thomas.
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.