UCSB Arts & Lectures presents former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson discussing National Security: Challenges and Opportunities, 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 2, at UCSB Campbell Hall.
A national security expert who speaks candidly about immigration, the border and other national security matters, Johnson will provide insight into U.S. policies.
Johnson served as the U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, December 2013-January 2017. He now practices law at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. Johnson has been affiliated with Paul, Weiss on and off since 1984, and was elected the firm’s first African-American partner in 1994.
Johnson is also currently on the board of directors of Lockheed Martin and the Center for a New American Security, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Since leaving public office in January 2017, Johnson has testified before Congress three times and is a frequent commentator about national and homeland security issues on ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN and other news outlets.
As secretary of Homeland Security, formed in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Johnson was the head of the third largest cabinet department of the U.S. government, consisting of 230,000 personnel and 22 components, including TSA, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Services, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and FEMA.
Johnson’s responsibilities as secretary included counterterrorism, cybersecurity, aviation security, border security, port security, maritime security, protection of our national leaders, the detection of chemical, biological and nuclear threats to the homeland and response to natural disasters.
In three years as DHS secretary, Johnson is credited with management reform of the department, which brought about a more centralized approach to decision-making in the areas of budgets, acquisition and overall policy.
Johnson also raised employee morale across the department, reflected in the September 2016 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey.
Prior to becoming secretary of Homeland Security, Johnson was general counsel of the Department of Defense (2009-12). In that post, Johnson is credited with being the legal architect for the U.S. military’s counterterrorism efforts in the Obama Administration.
In 2010 Johnson co-authored the report that paved the way for the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by Congress later that year.
In his final days as Defense Department general counsel, Johnson made the first of three appearances at the Oxford Union, this one an address entitled How Will the War Against al Qaeda End? The address received international attention and acclaim.
In October 1998, Johnson was appointed by President Bill Clinton to be general counsel of the Department of the Air Force and served in that position until January 2001. Earlier in his career, Johnson was an assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York (1989-91).
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.
— Caitlin O’Hara for UCSB Arts & Lectures.