(2007-10-24) Mukasey Attorney General

Michael Mukasey was nominated to be the next Attorney General.

James Fallows thinks he's a bad choice. John Turley agrees with that.

Oct24: the US Senate Juduciary Committee asked him to clarify his position on Water-Boarding as Torture.

Nov01: Wayne Barrett on Mukasey's connections to Rudy Giuliani (and Bernard Kerik).

• and Chuck Schumer. Even the Democratic senator guiding Mukasey's nomination though the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has his own Giuliani connections. As associate attorney general in 1983, Giuliani rebuffed Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Ray Dearie, who had recommended Schumer's indictment based on allegations involving his initial election to US Congress in 1980 (that was for having improperly used six employees on his state payroll to work on his campaign). Schumer's wife, Iris Weinshall, held several top posts in the Giuliani administration, and was ultimately his transportation commissioner. Mayor Bloomberg has said that Giuliani asked him to retain only two of his top aides when he left City Hall, and one was Weinshall. Before Weinshall took over the transportation job, she was a deputy commissioner under Giuliani at another agency, where she oversaw the construction of the bunker at 7 World Trade Center. Schumer pushed the White House to nominate Mukasey, just as he did with Paul Crotty. He was impressed, no doubt, by Mukasey's intellect and judicial service. But Schumer has not only championed Giuliani associates like the well-regarded Crotty and Mukasey; he also rushed to endorse Kerik when Bush nominated him for the homeland-security position, praising Kerik's "strong law-enforcement background" and predicting that he would do "an excellent job" at the giant agency.

Nov06: it looks like the committee will confirm him. Nonetheless, Mukasey was virtually certain to win the 10 committee votes to advance the nomination to the full Senate for a formal confirmation vote before Thanksgiving. Chuck Schumer, who suggested Mukasey to the White House, countered that the nominee's statements against waterboarding and for purging politics from the Justice Department amount to the best deal Democrats can get under the Bush administration. Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer's support for Mukasey was all but certain to give him the majority vote on the committee needed to advance the nomination. Mukasey was expected to win confirmation easily in the full Senate before Thanksgiving.

• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/08/ED2QT83TF.DTL |Yup
• There are nine Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, versus 10 Democrats. So, once again, the Democratic Party sells itself out.

Nov09 The US Senate confirmed him last night. More on the rushed vote, leading to a number of Democrats Not Voting.