Obama Nominates Lawyer Jeh Johnson for Homeland Security Secretary
by Jim Kouri
Clash Daily Guest Contributor
Jeh Johnson, a top Pentagon lawyer during President Barack Obama’s first term, is expected to be nominated to succeed Secretary Janet Napolitano at the Homeland Security Department on Friday afternoon, according to Fox News Channel’s White House correspondent, Ed Henry. {Editor: President Obama, did, in fact nominate Jeh Johnson as Secretary of Homeland Security]
President Obama will announce his nomination of Johnson, who served as the Defense Department’s general counsel during the administration’s first term, at a White House ceremony, according to former police lieutenant Dennis Casserone.
“If I had to describe what we can expect from a Secretary Johnson, I’d say just look at the guy in charge at the Justice Department, Eric Holder, who places more interest in helping Obama cover up than in uncovering terrorist threats,” claims Casserone.
Only eleven days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Pennsylvania’s former Governor Tom Ridge was appointed as the first Director of the Office of Homeland Security in the White House. The office oversaw and coordinated a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard the country against terrorism and respond to any future attacks.
With the passage of the Homeland Security Act by Congress in November 2002, the Department of Homeland Security formally came into being as a stand-alone, Cabinet-level department to further coordinate and unify national homeland security efforts, opening its doors on March 1, 2003. Twenty-two departments where brought under the DHS umbrella including immigration, border security, airport security, and other security-related departments.
Johnson, who was onboard with Obama’s national security and counterterrorism policies, such as the drone spy program, was influential in getting the U.S. military to repeal its ban on gays serving openly in the all its branches, according to Casserone, who also served as a Marine intelligence official in the 1980s.
According to several sources, Johnson is in sync with the beliefs of both Obama and his other lawyer friend, Attorney General Eric Holder. In fact, Johnson is quoted as saying that the U.S. is heading for a tipping point beyond which it should no longer pursue al-Qaeda terrorists by military means.
And like Obama, Jeh Johnson claims the terrorist group is on the verge of becoming “so degraded that a time would come when the legal authority given to the White House by Congress should no longer be used to justify waging the war that has been fought since 2001.”
Johnson further claimed that “America had to be able to say that our efforts should no longer be considered an armed conflict against al-Qaeda and its affiliates,” according to Sheriff Lucas Vangness of Cortland County, Mich.
“Johnson said that responsibility for tracking down al-Qaeda terrorists should go to police departments and law enforcement agencies,” said Vangness. “If he believes that, then why is he prepared to takeover a multi-billion dollar, snafu-prone agency like the DHS?”
If anyone wonders why a relative unknown lawyer such as Johnson is expected to be the next DHS secretary, the reason is clear: he has earned Obama’s personal and political loyalty.
According to political strategist Michael Baker, Johnson was one of Obama’s earliest political allies when he decided to run for presidency after only two years in the U.S. Senate.
Baker claims that Johnson held fundraisers for Obama especially in Iowa and Philadelphia knocking on doors for the candidate. He was one of Obama’s top bundlers and like Eric Holder showed extraordinary loyalty to Obama while overlooking his far-left ideology and Obama’s other allies such as former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, said Baker.
Prior to his appointment as General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Johnson was a partner at the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in which he became the first African American to be elected to that firm’s partnership and to which he returned after his four years at the Defense Department.
Many political observers in Washington are surprised to hear about Jeh Johnson’s impending nomination. Many believed that the White House would select someone such as New York City’s successful Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who is also a Democratic Party favorite, according to Baker.
Image: Jeh Johnson, courtesy of: DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist Chad J. McNeeley/Released
Jim Kouri, CPP, is founder and CEO of Kouri Associates, a homeland security, public safety and political consulting firm. He’s formerly Fifth Vice-President, now a Board Member of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, an editor for ConservativeBase.com, a columnist for Examiner.com, and a contributor to KGAB radio news, a Fox News affiliate.
