Bush taps Chertoff for a high-profile appeals court post
Friday, January 17, 2003
BY ROBERT RUDOLPH AND ROBERT COHEN
Star-Ledger Staff
Michael Chertoff, the former U.S. attorney for New Jersey now heading the government's terrorism investigations, will soon be nominated by President Bush to a prestigious post on a federal appeals court.
New Jersey's two Democratic senators confirmed yesterday that Chertoff, who is head of the Justice Department's criminal division, will accept a presidential appointment to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, the judicial panel that handles federal appellate cases for New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania and the Virgin Islands.
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Spokesmen for Sens. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said the lawmakers were contacted by the White House and told of the president's intention to nominate Chertoff to the appeals court.
"Sen. Corzine has a very favorable view of the nomination and has no questions about Mr. Chertoff's legal talent," said Corzine spokesman David Wald.
Tim Yehl, Lautenberg's chief of staff, said the senator intends to meet with Chertoff soon to discuss the appeals court judgeship.
Among other things, the senators may seek to question Chertoff about issues like abortion rights and affirmative action. Both lawmakers are expected to support his nomination.
Chertoff could not be reached for comment yesterday.
A background investigation is required before the actual nomination can be made, but it is likely to be little more than a formality and take just a few weeks because Chertoff already has been cleared for sensitive government positions.
If confirmed by the Senate, Chertoff will fill a vacancy created in June 2000 when Judge Morton Greenberg went on part-time senior status.
Although the nomination is not likely to face serious opposition, there is no guarantee of swift confirmation in the Senate, where it could be held up by political battles over other, more controversial judicial nominees.
As assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division, Chertoff has overseen a number of important terrorism cases since the Sept. 11 attacks. He also has been intimately involved in planning and executing the administration's pre-emptive strategy against terrorism, including policies that have drawn harsh criticism from civil libertarians.
These have included use of sweeping new powers to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails and to conduct searches, the holding of some 1,200 prisoners in secret detention across the nation, the use of new rules for the FBI to monitor religious places and political rallies without evidence of wrongdoing and the widespread questioning of young men of Arab descent.
Privately, Chertoff's friends say he has quietly deflected some of the more draconian measures proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft and others in the administration. Publicly, Chertoff has said he feels comfortable with the route the administration has taken.
"We have quite successfully reconciled national security interests with our civil liberties," Chertoff said in a panel discussion in November. "Our critics have overstated what is going on. Every change in the way we operate does not constitute a desecration of the Constitution."
In his current job, Chertoff also has overseen a number of important cases against executives at Enron, WorldCom and Adelphia. He also approved the indictment of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm, which led to its collapse and conviction.
In November, Chertoff was considered for the post of chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission to replace the embattled Harvey Pitt. Chertoff met with key White House aides, but ultimately was not chosen. Government officials said the business community did not want a prosecutor at the SEC, and helped scuttle the appointment.
Chertoff, who was in private practice before being tapped for the Justice Department post in March 2001, garnered national headlines as the top federal prosecutor for New Jersey from 1990 to 1994. He oversaw the prosecution of the kidnappers and killers of Exxon executive Sidney Reso, New Jersey mob boss Louis "Bobby" Manna, Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann and New York's top judge, Sol Wachtler.
Chertoff later went to Washington to work for New York Sen. Alfonse D'Amato and other Republicans on the Senate committee that investigated President Bill Clinton's Arkansas land deals, which came to be known as Whitewater.
More recently, he was a special prosecutor for the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee, coordinating inquiries into a Corrections Department scandal and the state's handling of State Police racial profiling issues.
The son of a rabbi, Chertoff was born in Elizabeth. He graduated from Harvard University in 1975, and received his law degree from Harvard Law School three years later. From 1979 to 1980, Chertoff clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., before taking a post as assistant U.S. attorney in New York.
It was in that post that Chertoff first began to attract media attention, successfully bringing to trial the celebrated Mafia "Commission" case, which toppled the bosses of most of the major crime families operating in New York.