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Senate Confirms Mukasey as Attorney General
Friday, November 09, 2007
WASHINGTON - The Senate confirmed retired judge Michael Mukasey as attorney
general to replace Alberto Gonzales, who was forced from office in a scandal
over his handling of the Justice Department.
Mukasey was confirmed late Thursday as the United States' 81st attorney
general after a sharp debate over his refusal to say whether the
waterboarding interrogation technique, which simulates drowning, is torture.
President Bush thanked the Senate, even though the margin had been whittled
down from nearly unanimous by a sharp debate over Mukasey's refusal to say
whether the waterboarding interrogation technique is torture.
"He will be an outstanding attorney general," Bush said in a statement from
his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Republicans were solidly behind Bush's nominee. Democrats said their votes
were not so much for Mukasey as they were for restoring a leader to a
Justice Department left adrift after Gonzales' resignation in September.
In the end, Mukasey was confirmed by a 53-40 vote. Six Democrats and one
independent joined Republicans in sealing his confirmation.
The choice, according to one of those Democrats, was essentially between
"whether to confirm Michael Mukasey as the next attorney general or whether
to leave the Department of Justice without a real leader for the next 14
months," said one Democratic supporter, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
"This is the only chance we have," she said, referring to Bush's threat to
appoint an acting attorney general not subject to Senate confirmation.
But members of her own party did not agree. Mukasey, his opponents argued,
refused to say whether waterboarding is torture and put the onus on Congress
to pass a law against the practice.
"This is like saying when somebody murders somebody with a a baseball bat
and you say, 'We had a law against murder but we never mentioned baseball
bats,"' said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat. "Murder
is murder. Torture is torture."
Being better than Gonzales or an acting attorney general is not enough
qualification for the job, said Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
"The next attorney general must restore confidence in the rule of law," he
said. "We cannot afford to take the judgment of an attorney general who
either does not know torture when he sees it or is willing to look the other
way."
The confirmation vote capped 10 months of scandal and resignations at the
Justice Department. Mukasey's chief Democratic patron, Sen. Chuck Schumer,
who like Mukasey is from New York, drove the probe into the purge of nine
federal prosecutors that helped push Gonzales out.
The debate came after a tense day of negotiations that at one point featured
Majority Leader Harry Reid threatening to postpone Mukasey's confirmation
until December. His confirmation had long been certainty despite the debate
over waterboarding.
Waterboarding, used by interrogators to make someone feel as if he is going
to drown, is banned by domestic law and international treaties. But U.S. law
applies to Pentagon personnel and not the CIA. The administration will not
say whether it has allowed the agency's employees to use it against terror
detainees.
"The United States will not be viewed kindly if we confirm as chief law
enforcement officer of this country someone who is unwilling or unable to
recognize torture when he sees it," said Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate's No.
2 Democrat.
Mukasey has called waterboarding personally "repugnant," and in a letter to
senators said he did not know enough about how it has been used to define it
as torture. He also said he thought it would be irresponsible to discuss it
since doing so could make interrogators and other government officials
vulnerable to lawsuits.
"He felt that he could not make that pronouncement without placing people at
risk to be sued or perhaps even criminally prosecuted," said Sen. Arlen
Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mukasey, who received a strong endorsement from Schumer, was the White
House's first choice to replace Gonzales. Gonzales announced his resignation
on Aug. 27, and the White House interviewed Mukasey the same day. Three
weeks later, Bush introduced the 66-year-old Mukasey as "a tough but fair
judge" and asked the Senate to confirm him quickly.
Mukasey, the former chief U.S. district judge in the Manhattan courthouse
just blocks from ground zero, was first appointed to the bench in 1987 by
President Ronald Reagan. He also worked for four years as a trial prosecutor
in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York's Southern District - one of the
Justice Department's busiest and highest-profile offices in the country.
Mukasey oversaw some of the most significant U.S. terror trials in the years
before and after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He sentenced Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the "blind sheik," to life in
prison for a plot to blow up New York City landmarks, and he signed in 2002
the material witness warrant that let the FBI arrest U.S. citizen Jose
Padilla. That warrant marked the start of a case that wound its way through
several federal courts as the government declared Padilla an enemy combatant
and held him for 3 1/2 years before he was convicted last month on
terrorism-related charges.
In an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal, Mukasey criticized U.S.
national security law as too weak in some areas by noting that prosecutors
are sometimes forced to reveal details of cases at the risk of tipping off
terrorists. He is also a supporter of the government's anti-terror USA
Patriot Act, wryly writing in 2004 that the "awkward name may very well be
the worst thing about the statute."
Mukasey, a partner at New York-based law firm Patterson Belknap Webb &
Tyler, is also a close friend to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a
Republican. He stepped down as an adviser to Giuliani's presidential
campaign, on which he served as part of an advisory committee on judicial
nominations.
Senate Confirms Mukasey as Attorney General
Friday, November 09, 2007
WASHINGTON - The Senate confirmed retired judge Michael Mukasey as attorney
general to replace Alberto Gonzales, who was forced from office in a scandal
over his handling of the Justice Department.
Mukasey was confirmed late Thursday as the United States' 81st attorney
general after a sharp debate over his refusal to say whether the
waterboarding interrogation technique, which simulates drowning, is torture.
President Bush thanked the Senate, even though the margin had been whittled
down from nearly unanimous by a sharp debate over Mukasey's refusal to say
whether the waterboarding interrogation technique is torture.
"He will be an outstanding attorney general," Bush said in a statement from
his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Republicans were solidly behind Bush's nominee. Democrats said their votes
were not so much for Mukasey as they were for restoring a leader to a
Justice Department left adrift after Gonzales' resignation in September.
In the end, Mukasey was confirmed by a 53-40 vote. Six Democrats and one
independent joined Republicans in sealing his confirmation.
The choice, according to one of those Democrats, was essentially between
"whether to confirm Michael Mukasey as the next attorney general or whether
to leave the Department of Justice without a real leader for the next 14
months," said one Democratic supporter, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
"This is the only chance we have," she said, referring to Bush's threat to
appoint an acting attorney general not subject to Senate confirmation.
But members of her own party did not agree. Mukasey, his opponents argued,
refused to say whether waterboarding is torture and put the onus on Congress
to pass a law against the practice.
"This is like saying when somebody murders somebody with a a baseball bat
and you say, 'We had a law against murder but we never mentioned baseball
bats,"' said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat. "Murder
is murder. Torture is torture."
Being better than Gonzales or an acting attorney general is not enough
qualification for the job, said Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
"The next attorney general must restore confidence in the rule of law," he
said. "We cannot afford to take the judgment of an attorney general who
either does not know torture when he sees it or is willing to look the other
way."
The confirmation vote capped 10 months of scandal and resignations at the
Justice Department. Mukasey's chief Democratic patron, Sen. Chuck Schumer,
who like Mukasey is from New York, drove the probe into the purge of nine
federal prosecutors that helped push Gonzales out.
The debate came after a tense day of negotiations that at one point featured
Majority Leader Harry Reid threatening to postpone Mukasey's confirmation
until December. His confirmation had long been certainty despite the debate
over waterboarding.
Waterboarding, used by interrogators to make someone feel as if he is going
to drown, is banned by domestic law and international treaties. But U.S. law
applies to Pentagon personnel and not the CIA. The administration will not
say whether it has allowed the agency's employees to use it against terror
detainees.
"The United States will not be viewed kindly if we confirm as chief law
enforcement officer of this country someone who is unwilling or unable to
recognize torture when he sees it," said Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate's No.
2 Democrat.
Mukasey has called waterboarding personally "repugnant," and in a letter to
senators said he did not know enough about how it has been used to define it
as torture. He also said he thought it would be irresponsible to discuss it
since doing so could make interrogators and other government officials
vulnerable to lawsuits.
"He felt that he could not make that pronouncement without placing people at
risk to be sued or perhaps even criminally prosecuted," said Sen. Arlen
Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mukasey, who received a strong endorsement from Schumer, was the White
House's first choice to replace Gonzales. Gonzales announced his resignation
on Aug. 27, and the White House interviewed Mukasey the same day. Three
weeks later, Bush introduced the 66-year-old Mukasey as "a tough but fair
judge" and asked the Senate to confirm him quickly.
Mukasey, the former chief U.S. district judge in the Manhattan courthouse
just blocks from ground zero, was first appointed to the bench in 1987 by
President Ronald Reagan. He also worked for four years as a trial prosecutor
in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York's Southern District - one of the
Justice Department's busiest and highest-profile offices in the country.
Mukasey oversaw some of the most significant U.S. terror trials in the years
before and after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He sentenced Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the "blind sheik," to life in
prison for a plot to blow up New York City landmarks, and he signed in 2002
the material witness warrant that let the FBI arrest U.S. citizen Jose
Padilla. That warrant marked the start of a case that wound its way through
several federal courts as the government declared Padilla an enemy combatant
and held him for 3 1/2 years before he was convicted last month on
terrorism-related charges.
In an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal, Mukasey criticized U.S.
national security law as too weak in some areas by noting that prosecutors
are sometimes forced to reveal details of cases at the risk of tipping off
terrorists. He is also a supporter of the government's anti-terror USA
Patriot Act, wryly writing in 2004 that the "awkward name may very well be
the worst thing about the statute."
Mukasey, a partner at New York-based law firm Patterson Belknap Webb &
Tyler, is also a close friend to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a
Republican. He stepped down as an adviser to Giuliani's presidential
campaign, on which he served as part of an advisory committee on judicial
nominations.
