Security boss took on Clintons

2005-01-11 19:33

Washington - Michael Chertoff, the new head of the US homeland security department, will be a familiar name to ex-president Bill Clinton.

Chertoff was a senior counsel on the Whitewater investigation into Bill and Hillary Clinton's financial dealings a decade ago.

Hillary Clinton, now a senator for New York, did not always have good relations with the inquiry.

And she will be on the senate committee that has to confirm Chertoff to head the massive security department.

But President George W Bush said in presenting Chertoff that he has had a "stellar" career, and Chertoff has moved on since Whitewater, which kept him busy from 1994 to 1996.

Now an appeals court judge, Chertoff also played a key role in drafting US anti-terror legislation after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.

Bush said that Chertoff had also proved his integrity, taking on organised crime in New Jersey and corporate fraud.

Chertoff headed the lawyers who prosecuted accounting firm Arthur Andersen for destroying documents related to its audits of Enron Corporatio, the failed energy-trading giant.

"He stood against racial profiling. He's worked with the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) legal defence fund to represent poor inmates on death row," said Bush.

"He's earned the respect of lawyers of many backgrounds and of politicians on both sides of the aisle."

- AFP