Breaking: Mukasey Refuses to Call Waterboarding TortureAs expected, Michael Mukasey did not change his position on the waterboarding question. From the AP:
President Bush’s nominee for attorney general told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that he does not know whether waterboarding is illegal. He pledged to study the matter and to reverse any Justice Department finding that endorses a practice that violates the law or the Constitution.
“If, after such a review, I determine that any technique is unlawful, I will not hesitate to so advise the president and will rescind or correct any legal opinion of the Department of Justice that supports the use of the technique,” Michael Mukasey wrote to the committee’s 10 Democrats.
We’ll have Mukasey’s full answer, as well as the reaction from Democrats and Republicans who’ve said that they’re vote on Mukasey depends on this answer, as they become available.
Update: Time had some background of the negotiations to produce this evidently unsatisfactory statement in a story today. You won’t be shocked to learn that Dick Cheney played a typically inflexible role in the back and forth:
No one will have a fixed count of votes until Mukasey responds to Durbin, but if he refuses to declare waterboarding expressly illegal, he looks likely to be rejected by the Judiciary Committee. On the other hand, if he does declare it illegal, he may be rendering a legal judgment on everyone who authorized waterboarding or used it in interrogation. “They are putting him in an almost untenable position on this,” says White House spokesman Tony Fratto. The White House expects Mukasey’s response will be sent to the committee Tuesday or Wednesday, and Fratto says, “He’ll respond in his usual manner, which is thoughtful and thorough, but there are certain things that he will not be able to comment on.”
Some Democrats on the committee have tried to help Mukasey get out of the box he’s in. Harold Kim, a former Specter staffer who works in the White House Counsel’s office, has been negotiating with Judiciary Committee Democrats, trying to find language they can live with. But attempts to compromise with Congress have met resistance from Cheney’s office, and when it comes to interrogation techniques, the Vice President and his chief of staff, David Addington, have notoriously pushed for presidential authority to go unchecked by the legislative branch.
