Michael Chertoff

Michael Chertoff is an American attorney and former federal judge who served as a United States Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 2003 to 2005. Born in 1953, he was appointed to the federal appellate bench by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by the United States Senate in June 2003. His tenure on the Third Circuit was relatively brief, as he departed the court in 2005 to assume a senior executive branch position. Before his judicial appointment, Chertoff had an extensive career as a federal prosecutor and private practice attorney, and following his departure from the bench, he continued in public service before returning to the private sector.

Early life and legal career

Michael Chertoff was born on November 28, 1953, into a family with strong religious and academic traditions. His father, Gershon Baruch Chertoff, was a rabbi and scholar of the Talmud who led a congregation in Elizabeth, New Jersey. His mother, Livia Chertoff, was born in Poland and had Israeli-American heritage; she worked as a flight attendant for El Al, the Israeli airline, and was among the first to hold that position with the carrier. Chertoff's paternal grandfather was also a rabbi and held an academic position as a professor of Talmud.

Chertoff received his early education at institutions in New Jersey, attending both the Jewish Educational Center in Elizabeth and the Pingry School. He pursued his undergraduate education at Harvard College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1975. During his time as an undergraduate, he spent a period studying abroad at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He continued his education at Harvard Law School, where he served as a research assistant to constitutional law scholar John Hart Ely, contributing to Ely's influential work on constitutional theory. Chertoff graduated from Harvard Law School in 1978 with a Juris Doctor degree, magna cum laude.

Following law school, Chertoff began his legal career with prestigious judicial clerkships. He first clerked for Judge Murray Gurfein of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, then served as a law clerk to United States Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., from 1979 to 1980. These clerkships provided him with experience in federal appellate and Supreme Court jurisprudence early in his career.

After completing his clerkships, Chertoff entered private practice with the law firm Latham & Watkins, where he worked from 1980 to 1983. He then transitioned to public service when he was hired as a federal prosecutor by Rudolph Giuliani, who was then serving as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In this role, Chertoff worked on significant cases involving organized crime and political corruption. In 1986, he played an important role alongside Giuliani in prosecuting organized crime figures in what became known as the Mafia Commission Trial, a major effort to dismantle Mafia leadership structures.

In 1990, Chertoff was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to serve as United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. In this capacity, he led the prosecution of several high-profile cases. In 1992, he secured the conviction of Gerald McCann, a second-term mayor of Jersey City, on charges related to defrauding money in connection with a savings and loan scheme; McCann subsequently served two years in federal prison. The following year, in 1993, Chertoff prosecuted Eddie Antar, the founder of the Crazy Eddie electronics retail chain, in a fraud case.

When the presidential administration changed in 1993, Chertoff was asked to remain in his position as United States Attorney, reportedly at the request of Democratic Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey. He was the only United States Attorney retained despite the change in administrations. He continued in that role until 1994, when he returned to private practice as a partner at Latham & Watkins. During the mid-1990s, he was involved in establishing the firm's office in Newark, New Jersey.

Despite his connections to some Democratic officials, Chertoff was selected to serve as special counsel for the Senate Whitewater Committee, which investigated allegations involving President Bill Clinton and his wife. The investigation did not result in charges against the Clintons. In 2000, Chertoff served as special counsel to the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee in an investigation concerning racial profiling by law enforcement in New Jersey. During the 2000 election cycle, he engaged in fundraising activities for George W. Bush and other Republican candidates and provided advice to Bush's presidential campaign on matters related to criminal justice policy.

Following Bush's election, Chertoff was appointed to lead the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice, serving from 2001 to 2003. In this role, he was the senior Justice Department official present at the FBI command center immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He subsequently oversaw the federal prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was suspected of involvement in the September 11 attacks. During 2002 and 2003, Chertoff provided legal guidance to the Central Intelligence Agency regarding the use of coercive interrogation techniques against individuals suspected of terrorism. He also directed the prosecution of the accounting firm Arthur Andersen for destroying documents related to the Enron corporate collapse. The Arthur Andersen prosecution proved controversial because it resulted in the firm's dissolution and the loss of approximately 26,000 jobs; the United States Supreme Court later overturned the conviction, and the case was not retried.

Federal appellate service

On March 5, 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Chertoff to serve as a United States Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The nomination was to fill a seat that had been vacated by Judge Morton I. Greenberg. The United States Senate confirmed Chertoff's appointment on June 9, 2003, by a vote of 88 to 1. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York cast the sole dissenting vote; she publicly stated that her vote was intended as a protest against what she characterized as mistreatment of junior White House staff members by Chertoff's team during the Whitewater investigation. Chertoff received his commission on June 10, 2003, the day following his confirmation.

Chertoff's service on the Third Circuit was brief, lasting from 2003 to 2005. The Third Circuit has jurisdiction over federal appeals arising from the district courts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands. During his tenure on the court, Chertoff participated in the appellate review process typical of federal circuit judges, hearing oral arguments and contributing to panel decisions on a range of federal legal issues. However, the short duration of his service—less than two years—meant that his judicial record on the Third Circuit was limited compared to judges who serve for extended periods.

Jurisprudence and legacy

Given the brevity of Chertoff's tenure on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, his impact as a federal appellate judge was necessarily limited. His service on the bench represented an interlude in a broader career that encompassed both prosecutorial work and executive branch leadership. The short period of his judicial service means that he authored a relatively small number of opinions compared to judges who remain on the bench for many years or decades.

Chertoff's departure from the Third Circuit came when President Bush nominated him in January 2005 to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security, a cabinet-level position. The Senate unanimously approved his appointment to that position on February 15, 2005. His experience with counterterrorism legislation and prosecution following the September 11 attacks was cited as a qualification for the homeland security role. He succeeded the first Secretary of Homeland Security and served in that capacity under President Bush, continuing for one additional day under President Barack Obama during the presidential transition.

Following his departure from government service, Chertoff returned to the private sector. He co-founded a consulting firm focused on risk management and security issues. He also joined a major Washington, D.C. law firm as senior counsel. Additionally, he has been involved in nonprofit governance, serving as chair and as a member of the board of trustees for an international organization focused on freedom and democracy issues.

Chertoff's career trajectory illustrates a pattern not uncommon among federal judges: movement between the judiciary, prosecutorial roles, private practice, and executive branch service. His time on the Third Circuit, while brief, represented a period of service in the Article III federal judiciary, a position with life tenure that he voluntarily left to assume other responsibilities. His broader legacy rests primarily on his work as a federal prosecutor, his role in developing and implementing counterterrorism policy, and his subsequent executive branch service, rather than on an extensive body of judicial opinions from his time on the appellate bench.