Secretaries Series: Jeh Johnson on DHS' Toughest Tasks

Secretaries Series: Jeh Johnson on DHS’ Toughest Tasks

Posted: November 8th, 2018

By Jeh Johnson

Jeh Johnson is a partner with the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. and the former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security (2013-2017). Prior to that, Johnson was General Counsel of the Department of Defense (2009-2012), General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force (1998-2001), and an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1989-1991). Johnson is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a graduate of Morehouse College (1979) and Columbia Law School (1982), and the recipient of nine honorary degrees. Johnson frequently lectures at Harvard, Yale and other law schools, and is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Election security, the migration of people toward the U.S.’ southern border and the public-private critical intersection of cyber security are just a few of the pressing issues facing the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS Secretary Kirsten Nielsen expressed confidence going into the mid-term election, calling it “the most secure election we’ve ever had”. At the same time, she’s dealing with the highly controversial issue of people moving toward the U.S.’ southern border and has the ongoing task of encouraging more private sector cooperation when it comes to cyber defense that impacts the nation as a whole. None of these issues are new to DHS. In fact, with many of them, we’ve been here, or somewhere similar, before.

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