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Senate Confirms Mukasey To Lead Tainted Justice Department

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By LAURIE KELLMAN, The Associated Press

Published: November 9, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Senate confirmed retired judge Michael Mukasey as attorney general Thursday night to replace Alberto Gonzales, who resigned from office in the midst of a scandal over his handling of the Justice Department.

Mukasey was confirmed as the nation's 81st attorney general after a sharp debate over his refusal to say whether the waterboarding interrogation technique is torture. The vote was 53-40.

Republicans were solidly behind President Bush' nominee. Democrats said their votes were not so much for Mukasey as they were for restoring a leader to a Justice Department left adrift after Gonzales' resignation in September.

"This is the only chance we have," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Many members of her own party didn't agree that Mukasey is better than somebody temporarily appointed and not subject to Senate confirmation. Mukasey, his opponents argued, said he didn't know whether waterboarding is illegal torture and put the onus on Congress to pass a law against the practice.

"This is like saying when somebody murders somebody with a baseball bat and you say, 'We had a law against murder but we never mentioned baseball bats,'" said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "Murder is murder. Torture is torture."

Being better than Gonzales or an acting attorney general is not enough qualification for the job, added Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

"The next attorney general must restore confidence in the rule of law," Kennedy said. "We cannot afford to take the judgment of an attorney general who either does not know torture when he sees it or is willing to look the other way."

The debate and vote capped 10 months of scandal and resignations that left the Justice Department leaderless after Gonzales resigned in September. Mukasey's chief Democratic patron, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., drove the probe into the purge of federal prosecutors that helped push Gonzales out.

The debate came after a tense day of negotiations that at one point featured Majority Leader Harry Reid threatening to postpone Mukasey's confirmation until December.

His confirmation had long been virtually assured despite the debate over his refusal to call waterboarding torture.

To win confirmation, Mukasey has promised to enforce any anti-waterboarding law passed by Congress, where, his Republican supporters say, responsibility for such policies lie.

Mukasey's Democratic opponents say he is being disingenuous because any such law would likely be vetoed by President Bush.

Waterboarding, used by interrogators to make someone feel as if he is going to drown, is banned by domestic law and international treaties.

U.S. law applies to military personnel but not the CIA.

The administration won't say whether it has allowed the agency's employees to use it against terror detainees.

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