Obama Nominates Jeh Johnson for Secretary of Homeland Security

President Barack Obama nominated former Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson Friday as secretary of Homeland Security, to replace Janet Napolitano, who resigned in September. As DOD’s top lawyer, Johnson was a party to the development of DOD’s cybersecurity efforts -- an asset given DHS’s prominent role in U.S. cybersecurity matters like the implementation of Obama’s cybersecurity executive order, said former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense-Cyber Policy Bob Butler. Johnson has been a partner at the Paul, Weiss law firm since resigning from DOD in December.

Butler told us he worked with Johnson to interpret how DOD could implement its cybersecurity strategy. Butler is now chief security officer at data center provider IO and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Jeh was always looking for ways to see if we could either interpret the law or advance the law in a way that would support proactive cyberdefenses,” Butler said. “I found him to be a strong supporter of DOD’s role in cybersecurity, helping us to work with the Department of Justice, DHS and others in the cyber world. He was a real team player and a very thoughtful thinker on cyber.” Johnson’s relationships with other agencies and with the private sector will be an important asset as well because DHS’s cybersecurity goals will “need continued private sector support … and a tremendous amount of interagency support” from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Department of Commerce and others, Butler said.

Johnson’s general counsel experience on counterterrorism will also be important in dealing with DHS’s cybersecurity efforts because “there are some natural analogs with regard to how we think about a non-state actor threat and what it means to think creatively about frameworks for countering this type of threat,” Butler said. Johnson also has a reputation for “getting things done,” Butler said. DHS needs to transition from “blueprints and strategies to implementing capabilities,” he said, saying the department’s Enhanced Cybersecurity Services and Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation programs “need to be implemented well.” DHS also faces an upcoming reauthorization of the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council, which is “absolutely critical because that really provided some protection to companies engaging with the government,” and must look to expanding its public-private partnerships on cybersecurity issues, Butler said.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in a statement Johnson’s experience as DOD general counsel “gives him a deep understanding of the tools our government brings to bear against the two most significant threats to our homeland: terrorists and cyber attacks.” House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said Johnson’s experience in counterterrorism and cybersecurity will be “an asset to the nation.”