President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday announced that former Facebook lawyer Jessica Hertz will serve as his White House staff secretary.
The powerful post features constant travel with the president. Hertz will determine the pace and presentation of paperwork for appointments, regulations and legislation.
Hertz, who worked as Facebook’s associate general counsel for regulatory issues until June, will screen all paperwork that reaches Biden’s desk, including notes from politicians and aides vying for attention.
“Hertz worked as a Director and Associate General Counsel for Facebook’s regulatory team and was a Partner at the law firm Jenner & Block,” the Biden transition office said in a press release.
Hertz’s work history will add intrigue to policy decisions impacting the social media giant.
The 2003 Harvard University graduate worked at Facebook beginning in April 2018. When Biden was vice president, she worked nearly two years, from 2012 to 2014, as his principal deputy counsel, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The Federal Trade Commission and 46 states this month filed antitrust lawsuits that could break up Facebook, and members of both parties in Congress are clamoring to revise or repeal legal protections for social media companies.
Biden says he supports an effort to undo protections for internet companies under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives immunity for third-party content. But the details of possible reform are in flux.
Republicans and President Trump pushed to repeal Section 230’s protections after Facebook and Twitter censored The Post’s reporting in October on a Hunter Biden hard drive that appeared to link the then-Democratic presidential candidate to his son’s business relationships in China and Ukraine.
Trump’s current staff secretary is Derek Lyons.