Michael Mukasey drew closer to becoming attorney general Friday after two key Senate Democrats said they would vote for him despite his refusal to define an interrogation technique that stimulates drowning as torture.
The decision by Sens. Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein came shortly after the chairman of the committee, Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced he would vote against Mukasey, a former federal judge.
"This is an extremely difficult decision," Schumer said in a statement, adding that Mukasey "is not my ideal choice."
In announcing her support for Mukasey, Feinstein, D-Calif., said "first and foremost, Michael Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales," referring to the former attorney general who resigned in September after months of questions about his honesty.
Including Leahy, five of the Judiciary Committee's 10 Democrats had said they would vote against Mukasey's confirmation after the nominee earlier this week refused to say that waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, is torture and therefore illegal.
But with nine Republicans on the panel, Schumer's and Feinstein's support for Mukasey virtually guarantees that a majority of the committee will recommend his confirmation when it votes on it next Tuesday.
Leaders in both parties have said they expect Mukasey to get at least 70 votes when the full, 100-member Senate votes on his confirmation. But Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had said he would not bring it up for a vote without Judiciary Committee action first.
Schumer's announcement followed a private meeting Friday with Mukasey to discuss waterboarding.
"I deeply oppose it," Schumer said of waterboarding. "Unfortunately, this nominee, indeed any proposed by President Bush, will not agree with this. I am, however, confident that this nominee would enforce a law that bans waterboarding."
Schumer, who was Mukasey's chief Democratic sponsor, said the retired judge told him that if Congress passes a law banning waterboarding "the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law." Schumer said Mukasey said he would enforce any congressional ban the controversial interrogation method.
Torture is considered a war crime by the international community and waterboarding has been banned by the U.S. military, but CIA interrogators are believed to have used the technique on terror detainees as recently as a few years ago.
Mukasey has called waterboarding personally "repugnant," and in a letter to senators this week 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.
Early Friday, President Bush renewed his plea for Mukasey's confirmation.
"He's a good man. He's a fair man. He's an independent man, and he's plenty qualified to be attorney general," Bush said of Mukasey, just after landing in Columbia, S.C., on his way to a political fundraiser and to give a speech at Fort Jackson.
On Thursday, Bush had warned that the Justice Department would go without a leader in a time of war if Democrats thwarted Mukasey.
Bush also said that if the Judiciary Committee were to block Mukasey because of his noncommittal stance on the legality of waterboarding, it would set a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for attorney general.
source: 2nov2007
WASHINGTON — Two Democratic senators said Friday they would vote for President Bush's nominee for attorney general, Michael Mukasey, hours after the chairman of the Judiciary Committee announced his opposition to the nominee.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles Schumer of New York announced they would support the retired federal judge from New York.
Feinstein and Schumer are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is scheduled to vote on the Mukasey nomination Tuesday.
If all the Republican members of the committee also vote for Mukasey, which is expected, his nomination will go before the full Senate. A leading Democrat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday Mukasey is likely to be confirmed if his nomination passes the Judiciary Committee.
Schumer had praised the nomination of Mukasey, a retired federal judge, as a consensus candidate when the president announced Mukasey as his choice to replace former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales gave up the post in September.
A number of Democratic senators, however, have said they will oppose Mukasey because of questions about his views on the interrogation technique called "waterboarding" and the president's power to order electronic surveillance.
Waterboarding involves restraining a suspect and using water to produce the sensation of drowning.
Mukasey told senators this week that he finds waterboarding "repugnant," but he could not answer whether the technique amounts to torture.
While saying "serious questions have been raised about Judge Mukasey's views on torture and on separation of powers," Feinstein said she would support the nominee because the Justice Department needed fresh leadership.
"First and foremost, Michael Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales. Rather, he has forged an independent life path as a practitioner of the law and a federal judge in the Southern District of New York.
"I believe that Judge Mukasey is the best we will get and voting him down would only perpetuate acting and recess appointments, allowing the administration to avoid the transparency that confirmation hearings provide and diminish effective oversight by Congress."
Just hours before Feinstein and Schumer announced their decisions, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, announced he would vote against the Mukasey nomination.
"No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture," Leahy said. "Waterboarding was used at least as long ago as the Spanish Inquisition. We prosecuted Japanese war criminals for waterboarding after World War II.
"I am eager to restore strong leadership and independence to the Department of Justice. I like Michael Mukasey. I wish that I could support his nomination. But I cannot. America needs to be certain and confident of the bedrock principle — deeply embedded in our laws and our values — that no one, not even the president, is above the law."
President Bush demanded the Senate confirm Mukasey during a speech Thursday at the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank.
"In a time of war, it's vital for the president to have a full national security team in place," the president said.
The president has equated asking Mukasey about his opinion of waterboarding with asking him about the CIA-run interrogation program, whose details are classified.
Bush said the program does not violate U.S. bans on torture, but added that Mukasey "does not want an uninformed opinion to be taken by our professional interrogators in the field as placing them in legal jeopardy." Watch the president declare Mukasey's confirmation vital to national security »
But Leahy said "Judge Mukasey was not asked to evaluate any secret 'facts and circumstances.' "
"He was asked whether waterboarding is illegal. Our law makes torture illegal, and waterboarding is torture, and it is illegal. It is frankly not dependent on any, quote, 'relevant facts and circumstances of the technique's past or proposed use,' " he said, quoting from Mukasey's response to senators on the question.
Sources with knowledge of the CIA-run interrogation program have said agents are no longer using waterboarding. But those sources have said waterboarding was used in the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, now facing trial before a military tribunal for planning al Qaeda's 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
The practice was used by the Spanish Inquisition, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge and the World War II Japanese military, according to Human Rights Watch. It is specifically banned in U.S. law governing the treatment of prisoners by the U.S. military.
source: 2nov2007
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