Jeh Johnson was Secretary of Homeland Security (2013-2017) and General Counsel of the Department of Defense (2009-2012) in the Obama Administration, and General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force (1998-2001) in the Clinton Administration. Earlier in his career, he was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York (1989-1991).
For most of his career Johnson had been a lawyer and trial lawyer in private practice at the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Johnson is also a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers. In 1993, Johnson became the first African American elected to partnership at Paul Weiss. He retired from the firm in June 2025.
Johnson is currently on the board of directors of MetLife and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. He previously served on the board of directors of Lockheed Martin, U.S. Steel, PG&E, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Johnson is a regular commentator on NBC’s Meet The Press, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, FOX’s Fox & Friends, CNN, NewsNation and other news networks. In September 2024 Johnson played the role of the incumbent President running for reelection in the PBS special “Deadlock.”
Johnson is a graduate of Morehouse College and Columbia Law School and the recipient of 13 honorary degrees. He has debated numerous times at the Oxford and Cambridge Unions in England, and an honorary life member of the Cambridge Union.
Johnson is the 2024 recipient of the Gold Medal, the New York State Bar Association’s highest honor, a 2024 recipient of the National Law Journal’s Lifetime Achievement Award, a 2022 recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, a 2021 recipient of the American Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award, as “an American statesman [who] has devoted his career to the public interest,” and a 2018 recipient of the Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Award, presented at the Reagan Presidential Library, for “contribut[ing] greatly to the defense of our nation,” and “guiding us through turbulent times with courage and wisdom.”
Photo courtesy of The US Department of Homeland Security.