David J. Johnson Appointed as Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Division

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III named David J. Johnson special agent in charge of the San Francisco Division. He most recently served as the special agent in charge of the Salt Lake City Division. In this role, he oversaw FBI operations and personnel in Utah, Idaho, and Montana.

Mr. Johnson entered on duty with the FBI in 1991 and was assigned to a Violent Crime Squad in the San Jose Resident Agency. In 1994, he was assigned to the High Technology Squad, which was responsible for investigating all matters impacting high-tech companies. Mr. Johnson served as a case agent on a complex theft of proprietary information matter with a sensitive counterintelligence component; this case became the first to be prosecuted under the economic espionage classification.

In 1997, Mr. Johnson was assigned to a Mexican Drug Trafficking Organization Squad. Two years later, he became a supervisory special agent of the Asian Organized Crime Squad in the San Jose Resident Agency and led two successful multi-agency task forces that targeted human trafficking and police corruption and racketeering cases.

As the chief of the Crimes against Children Unit, he developed the Innocence Lost National Initiative, which identifies and rescues minors involved in prostitution and investigates the pimps who profit from their exploitation. This work continues through the Child Exploitation Task Force. Mr. Johnson established the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment teams and technology to assist in locating registered sex offenders and collaborated with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in northern Virginia.

He was promoted to the assistant special agent in charge of the San Francisco Division and managed all criminal programs, the Victim Witness Program, and the SWAT team. In 2008, Mr. Johnson was promoted to inspector in charge and led the task force created by the attorney general to conduct a criminal investigation into the destruction of interrogation videotapes by the CIA. He and other members of the investigative team were awarded the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service for their efforts.

In 2009, he became chief of the Violent Crimes Section in the Criminal Investigative Division, responsible for managing programs that involve federal violations such as bank robberies, kidnappings, extortions, crimes against children, Indian country matters, fugitives, major theft, transportation crimes, and special jurisdiction matters. In 2011, he was reassigned to be the chief of the newly created Latin America/Southwest Border Threat Section, which was formed to address the multitude of issues surrounding the U.S./Mexico border.

Mr. Johnson has a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Pittsburgh and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1990 and practiced insurance defense law before joining the FBI.