Rod Lamkey Jr. for POLITICO Jeh Johnson on Gmail use: 'Whoops'

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson does not believe he took an “appreciable” risk by accessing his personal Gmail account from his work computer, he told POLITICO’s Mike Allen during a Playbook Live discussion Tuesday morning.

Nevertheless, after Bloomberg revealed Monday that Johnson and other DHS officials had received waivers to obtain their personal email on their government computers, Johnson said he’s suspending the practice. The department had banned the practice for its employees last year except for people who got waivers, DHS has confirmed to POLITICO.


“To be perfectly honest, this is something that I had for a while,” Johnson said Tuesday. “And when I read the story, I said, ‘Whoops, this is not a good practice, so I should discontinue it.’

“I probably should have done it sooner,” he added. “I want to see others on that list do the same thing.”

Security experts said Web-based email services like Gmail or Yahoo Mail can pose risks on workplace computers by making it harder to filter or block messages containing viruses or other types of cyberattacks.

Johnson told Allen he never used his personal Gmail account for government business. Occasionally, he said, someone would mistakenly send a work-related email to his personal account and he would forward it to his government account.

“DHS has to be the model for good cybersecurity in government, and as the secretary and leader of the department I should be the model for that for the rest of the department,” he said. “And that’s what I intend to do.”

Instead, Johnson said, he’ll just use his iPhone to read Gmail at work.