Michael Chertoff and reasons of State

President George W. Bush announced on January 11, 2005, the nomination of Judge Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security. At the press conference held in the Rooselvet room of the White House to present the latter he stressed the fact that the candidate has already served in positions that required Senate approval, something the nominee has always obtained without major difficulty.

This was his way of saying that there was no possibility for his new nominee to face the same fate than the previous one, Bernard Kerik [1], who was compelled to renounce prior to his appearance in the Senate. The super-cop abandoned stating that he has hired as domestic servant an illegal immigrant, but the media rapidly discovered that there was not such domestic servant and considered his withdrawal a result from his fear of been openly exposed with a complicated story of immoral behavior. So then ... bye to the cop who was a business associate to Rudolph Giuliani. Here we have the judge, a former assistant to Rudolph Giuliani [2].

Michael Chertoff, born in New Jersey, on November 28, 1953, did particularly brilliant studies in the Law School at Harvard. Short after graduating from the university he was made judicial secretary of Judge William Brennan in the US Supreme Court (1979-80). Later on, he worked next to Rudolph Giuliani, at that time district attorney in Manhattan, in court procedures against the Mafia (1984-86). He brought to court the Godfathers of the Genovese, Luccese and Colombo families. In 1990 he registered in the Republican Party and President George H. Bush (senior) named him as District Attorney General in New Jersey.

So he is made the youngest jurist ever to hold such a high position in the history of the nation. He performed a skillful and implacable job. He obtained tough sentences against kidnappers and murderers of Sidney Reso, President of Exxon International. He presented charges against the major of Jersey City for tax evasion and send to prison the President of the New York Court, Sol Wachtler, for sexual abuse.

In 1995 he began serving as an expert in the State Committee created by Senator Alfonso d’Amato to investigate on the Whitewater case. He dig in the past of the Clinton family trying to prove they bear responsibility in the real-state scandal and particularly investigate the private life of the First Lady regarding the «suicide» of her «associate» Vince Foster [3].

In 1996, he campaigned in favor of the presidential candidacy of Bob Dole running against a second term of Clinton. Afterwards he went back to a legal office -Latham & Watkins- where he specialized defending personalities. He specifically attained that Michael Francis, President of the Culture and Sports Authority in New Jersey, walked free from a charge of influence peddling.

In 2000, Michael Chertoff campaigned in favor of George W. Bush (junior) and collects funds for him. The new President, so as to thank him, immediately named him as assistant to John Ascroft [4] in the Justice Department, in charge of Criminal Division. Senator Hillary Clinton is the only one voting against his nomination. In the Justice Department Michael Chertoff defends his political friends such as Senator Bob Torricelli, involved in a case of corruption or Arthur Andersen, directly involved in the Enron scandal.

Above all, Chertoff is the one in command, on September 11, 2001 of the investigations on the attacks in New York and on flight 93 (the one destroyed over Pennsylvania) but not on the action done against the Pentagon (that immediately was classified as a military secret). It is also under his command that the FBI provide assurances that planes were hijacked and circulated a list of air pirates. Later on these accusations will prove false since suspects are not registered in the passenger lists and many of them are living abroad.

In spite of that, not only charges remained untouched but Michael Chertoff expressed that the twentieth suspect - Zacarias Moussaou, a French citizen- for sure had a role to play in the attempts and something preventing him to do so. Moussaoui will then be sent to prison, incommunicado, and his defense lawyers will never be informed on what charges. In fact, like all Torquemada [5], Michael Chertoff is not only an implacable judge but also, above all, the bearer of an ideology.

First of all, he plays an important role in the Zionist faction of the American Jewish community. His father a Rabbi, he placed his two children in Jewish schools while his wife chaired the Anti-Defamation League in New Jersey. He keeps close links with the American Jewish Congress and has an openly participation in all their demonstrations. He does not hide the fact, that through his public functions, he is waging a personal combat against all those he considers as enemies of his community: against David Duke, Great Dragon of the Ku Flux Klan, as well as against militants of the Palestinian cause related to the Islamic Jihad or with the Hamas movement.

In second place, Michael Chertoff is a member of the Federalist Society, a extreme-right jurist association. Precisely within this spirit he drafted, some time ago, the bulky Patriotic Act, presented and adopted urgently right after the attempts of 9/11. Thanks to this text he was able to suspend for a period of four years the implementation of the Bill of Rights ( the ten constitutional amendments also known as the «Declarations of Rights»).

He ordered the detention and the holding of almost one thousand foreign Muslims incommunicado within the framework of anti-terrorist investigations. He creates a «voluntarily» wire tapping and filing program by the FBI of all Muslims living in the country, both foreign or nationals. He advised the infiltration by the FBI of all associations and places of cult by Muslims in the country and follow quite close all this activity.

With John Ashcroft (who could be appointed shortly as member of the Supreme Court) and Alberto Gonzáles [6] (already installed in the Justice Department), Michael Chertoff forms a troika of members of the Federalist Society, advocates of the reasons of State. In just four years they managed to destroy all guarantees granted to a prisoner, something that characterized the American judicial system. Their program for the second term of Bush consists in the creation of a preventive justice that will deter terrorist acts through the preventive arrest of anyone suspect of committing such acts.