Bush nominates ex-judge for attorney general

Some legal conservatives and Republican activists have expressed reservations about Mukasey’s legal record. Even before he was nominated, Mukasey met on Sunday with six conservative leaders to answer their questions.

Mukasey currently serves as a judicial adviser to GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani; the White House said he would sever ties with the campaign.

Mukasey, chosen in large part for his experience in national security matters, noted the threat of terrorism in his brief remarks. “Thirty-five years ago, our foreign adversaries saw widespread devastation as a deterrent,” he said. “Today, our fanatical enemies see it as a divine fulfillment.”

Friday was the last day of Gonzales’ 2-1/2 years at Justice. He resigned amid a continuing controversy over the firings of several federal prosecutors and questions about the administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program.

Until a new attorney general is confirmed by the Senate, Bush said, Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler will serve as acting attorney general. Keisler oversaw the Bush administration’s lengthy legal fight over the rights of terrorism war-era prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Keisler had announced his resignation from the department in early September. He had been nominated by Bush earlier in the year for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Senate has not acted on Keisler’s nomination.

Bush said that Keisler had agreed to stay on at the Justice Department, which will allow Solicitor General Paul Clement to focus on his duties as the government’s chief advocate as the Supreme Court nears the opening of its new fall term.

Cases included Sheik Omar
During his 18 years as a judge, Mukasey presided over thousands of cases, including the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was accused of plotting to destroy New York City landmarks. In the 1996 sentencing of co-conspirators in the case, Mukasey accused the sheik of trying to spread death “in a scale unseen in this country since the Civil War.” He then sentenced the blind sheik to life in prison.

Campaign finance records show Mukasey has made few political donations at the federal level, and that not all of the money he gave went to Republicans.

From the 1980 election to this year, the only contributions listed for Mukasey are $1,000 given last September to Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent, and $1,200 to Giuliani’s presidential campaign this year, according to the nonpartisan CQ Money Line, a service that tracks political giving.

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