Today’s Must ReadMichael Mukasey is it, the president’s pick for attorney general to be announced as soon as today.
What do we know about the guy? Relatively little, it’s apparent from the morning papers.
His relevant experience is comprised four years as an assistant U.S. attorney and 19 years on the federal bench after being appointed by Ronald Reagan. Of all that time, the most telling decision for liberals and conservatives alike is his ruling in the Jose Padilla case, where he found that the U.S. could detain Padilla indefinitely without charges (eventually reversed on appeal), but that he should be able to meet with his attorneys. Mukasey is, in other words, conservative — but independent-minded. And the first indications are that Democrats are likely to determine that they can live with him. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) remains an enthusiastic supporter.
Politically, all that’s known about Mukasey is that he backs Rudy Giuliani, with whom Mukasey served as a prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney office — both he and his sons advise the campaign, and his son heads up the white collar defense practice for Bracewell & Giuliani, the law firm that Giuliani joined two years ago.
The only signs of controversy are supposed grumblings among conservatives about the pick. But although that dissatisfaction is noted by all the major papers, not one of them names an actual dissatisfied conservative. Even the note of warning sounded at The Corner doesn’t put a name to Mukasey’s detractors, just noting that there are “perfectly sane conservative activists who are concerned.” The Wall Street Journal reports, however, that “the White House was reaching out to conservative legal activists over the weekend to make a detailed case for its choice.” Bill Kristol started the charge this weekend, by arguing that conservatives shouldn’t be upset that the president didn’t nominate Ted Olson (after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) threatened to block him) because Mukasey is Olson without the mess: he’ll “come to judgments similar to Olson’s on key issues of executive power and the war on terror.”
For now, the big fight over Mukasey, barring some unexpected revelation, is likely to be how much Democrats push to get documents and testimony relevant to the U.S. attorney firings before they allow a vote on his confirmation, as they’ve warned.
