NYT says:
President Bush has decided to nominate Michael B. Mukasey, a former federal judge from New York who has presided over several high-profile terrorism trials, as his next attorney general, and is expected to announce the selection Monday, according to several people familiar with the decision….
Unlike Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Mukasey is not a close confidante of the president. Nor is he a Washington insider. But people in both political parties say he possesses the two qualities that Mr. Bush has been looking for in a nominee: a law-and-order sensibility that dovetails with the president’s agenda for the war on terror, and the potential to avoid a bruising confirmation battle with the Democrats who now run the Senate.
One of those Democrats, Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who led the fight to oust Mr. Gonzales, issued a statement this evening praising Mr. Mukasey – a suggestion that Democrats, who are already challenging Mr. Bush over the war in Iraq, have little appetite for another big fight at the moment.
“While he is certainly conservative, Judge Mukasey seems to be the kind of nominee who would put rule of law first and show independence from the White House, our most important criteria,” Mr. Schumer said. “For sure we’d want to ascertain his approach on such important and sensitive issues as wiretapping and the appointment of U.S. attorneys, but he’s a lot better than some of the other names mentioned and he has the potential to become a consensus nominee.”
Expect a quick and uneventful confirmation for Judge Mukasey. He’s not Michael Chertoff or Ted Olson, so there won’t be much to talk about. I don’t know much about Mukasey, but what I’ve gathered is that he’s as good as the Dems could expect. Schumer actually suggested him a while back as a Supreme Court nominee that the Dems could live with. Unlike Alito, who obviously they couldn’t live with. Oh, wait …
Michael Mukasey's role in the Jose Padilla case
Politico's article Bush plans to pick Mukasey for A.G.
Mukasey will be in office for probably a maximum of–what–16 months. His nomination isn’t something I would get into a tizzy about. And, if Glenn Greenwald (link in previous comment) is correct, the way he handled the Padilla case when he had it was stellar.
<
p>
Two observations
<
p>
One, I’m not sure what Schumer’s comment “For sure we’d want to ascertain his approach on such important and sensitive issues as wiretapping and the appointment of U.S. attorneys…” is supposed to refer to. The latter (appointments of US Attorneys) is surely a DoJ issue. But the illegal wiretapping is, as far as I can tell, being carried out by the National Security Agency, which is not (I believe) under DoJ jurisdiction. It seems to be under joint White House and Pentagon jurisdiction.
<
p>
Two, it should be remembered that the CYA (“cover your ass”) memoranda signed off by Speedy Gonzales and John Yoo justifying illegal wiretapping and illegal torture were writen while they were in White House’s Office Of Legal Counsel department, not by the DoJ.
<
p>
What I would be interested in knowing about Mukasey is why he would have left a lifetime sinecure as a federal judge.
So he already gave up the judgeship for his current job at a law firm and role as an advisor of some sort to Giuliani. With 18 years on the bench he must already have a nice pension guaranteed, not to mention the certainty that he can get high pay for little work hereafter by adding his name to a law firm’s roster. These guys are in a different league from the relatively low-paid MA legislators who always need to be on the lookout for how to cash in.
<
p>
Here’s Mukasey’s biography from his law firm, via TPM.
was all written at DoJ. Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) is a DoJ department, not a White House Counsel department. As far as I know, Yoo has never worked in the White House.
TPM Muckraker seems to think Leahy wants to trade Mukasey’s confirmation for all the U.S. Attorney scandals docs Bush has withheld.
<
p>
I hope Leahy’s playing hardball here.
The Democrats are saying no confirmation hearings until the White House responds to their subpeonas. Who blinks first? Experience sez: the Democrats.
The main idea coming out of this seems to be that this guy isn't completely nuts. Given the last six years, “not a complete nutjob — and apparently competent.” is a glowing report on a Bush nominee.